I’m switching a set of papers from Chicago notes-bibliography style with full bibliography to Chicago notes-bibliography style without full bibliography. As any fule no, this will mean expanding the first occurence of the reference item in the notes from shortened to full form (among other things). Since it’s May, and a sunny evening, it’s important […]

‘Ibid.’ is an abbreviation for ‘ibidem‘ (‘in the same place’). The full stop in ‘ibid.’ is therefore obligatory. But it can be dashed hard to spot. To automate the search (in MS Word), hit Cntrl-F to bring up the Find/Replace box, enable Wildcards, and enter: ibid[!.] in the find box. This little string finds instances […]

Regular expressions provide a language for searching and editing strings of characters. They can be invaluable for academic editing. In MS Word, simple regular expressions are called “wildcards.” Used with care, these can save an editor time and keyboard strokes. You can enable them by Cntrl-F to bring up the Find/Replace dialogue box, clicking “More […]

Regular E

When track changes is enabled, MS Word transposes characters when using the wildcard string (a.k.a. regular expression): Find \(([0-9]{4})\) Replace with . \1. The aim of the string is to transform, e.g. Hart, Keith (1973) to Hart, Keith. 1973. But when track changes is on it produces Hart, Keith1973.. The only way to work around […]