Index Content Placement Style Art Packaging

1. Content

1.1) Spelling & Grammar
This should be pretty obvious, though it requires you to have a fairly good vocabulary and a decent grasp of grammar. When you're looking for typos, read things slowly. Your brain has a tendency to fill in gaps and correct for misspellings, or even gloss over repeat words. Just be careful and read word by word, rather than focusing on what the sentence says.

As far as grammar goes, there's far too many rules to list, but I will mention a few common mistakes.

"Alot" is not a word. "A lot" is correct.
"Awhile" means "for a while." "A while" means a period of time.
"Alright" is not a word (technically). It's a bit of an oddity since the "al-" form of many "all ____" phrases are standard, and many people use it, but "alright" technically is a nonstandard abbreviation.
"Every day" means each day. "Everyday" means commonplace or routine.
"Farther" refers to physical distance. "Further" refers to advancement.
"Anyway" is correct. "Anyways" is wrong.
For hypotheticals, use the subjunctive form. For example, "If I were a turkey ... " ("were" not "was").
"Its" is a possessive pronoun. "It's" is a contraction. I think most people know this, but sometimes type it in wrong, so just be on the lookout.
Never use "e.g." or "i.e." for scanslations. If the situation calls for them, use "for example" for "e.g." or "that is" for "i.e." instead.
When you have a noun or pronoun modifying a gerund, use the genitive form. For example, "I appreciate your coming here ... " ("your" not "you").
Pay special attention to awkward tense changes and errors in parallel structure.

Make sure to check over every bit of text. It's tempting to gloss over things like tables of contents, flap notes, and other trivial bits of text, but a typo is still a typo.

Of course, there are plenty of other errors people often make, but these are some of the ones I see more often. Also, depending on the situation, informal or erroneous grammar may be intentional, so just make sure everything fits. A thesaurus will prove invaluable for most scripts.

1.2) Diction & Language
This pretty much boils down to what I was just saying. Informal grammar and erroneous spellings may be used intentionally to convey conversational language. Try to make sure the word choice and formality of the text matches the personality and mood of the speaker. Easy, right?

Well, not quite. Just make sure you don't go overboard to the point where it becomes a chore to decipher what's being said. A good example of going overboard would be the old Dark Horse versions of Ah! My Goddess, in which some of the lines spoken by the characters Tamiya and Otaki were practically gibberish.

1.3) Punctuation
Oh, this is a tricky one. Not only are there different rules for American and British conventions, but manga typically uses informal punctuation anyway. Still, there are a few things that you should keep in mind.

The ellipsis (the ... ) is one of the more common items of punctuation used in scanslation, but its usage is pretty nonstandard. Normally it's used to indicate some omission, but in manga it's mainly used to indicate continuation or trailing off. Since ellipses are used as a terminal punctuation, there's no need for the "4-period" ellipsis (3 for the ellipsis, 1 for a terminal period). Other than that, it's fairly straightforward. When using it to indicate trailing off or continuity, never put a space preceding it (standard usage calls for a space before and after, but that's not how we're using it, and it just ends up looking ugly). If you want to show a delayed thought or exclamation, use ...! or ...? (ellipsis then the punctuation).

The surprised question is another common item, and there's a hard and fast rule for this. It's always ?! (never !?). In my mind, ?! also makes a lot more sense, but maybe that's just me. In any case, it's always ?! for surprised questions.

The hyphen, n-dash, and m-dash mark are some of the most butchered punctuation marks in English, and even more so for scanslations. For scanslation purposes (largely limited by font constraints) there are really only 2 dash-like marks: the single and the double hyphen. A single hyphen works like a hyphen and n-dash should, joining words and numbers as well as indicating inclusiveness. Additionally, unlike standard usage, a single hyphen can be used in scanslation as a terminal punctuation, similar to a terminal ellipsis, but indicating a more abrupt cutoff (e.g. "Oh shi-"). Double hyphens basically work like m-dashes, indicating a sentence break. They can also be used as a terminal punctuation though, if this sentence break comes at the end of a bubble.

The quotation mark is also where mistakes are often made. The general rule is that if the punctuation modifies the quoted material, it goes inside the quotation marks; if it modifies the entire sentence, it goes outside. In American English however, the rule is a bit more complicated. Commas and periods always go inside quotation marks, regardless of what is modified (British conventions follow the original rule). This only applies to commas and periods though, not question marks, exclamation marks, or ellipses, which follow the original rule. A minor complication is the use of ellipses as terminal punctuations in scanslations, but basically, if the quoted material is the thought that's trailing off, it goes inside. If it's the whole sentence trailing off, it goes outside.

The tilde sees limited use in scanslations, but basically serves to indicate a sort of cutesy feeling single dash (e.g. nya~). I usually see it a lot when there's the little heart symbol afterwards.

Try to avoid the semicolon. I know it's handy, but it just looks ugly with most fonts. If you can word it differently, do so.

More generally, my personal belief is that all dialogue or thought should have some terminal punctuation. SFX and scrawls generally don't, but otherwise it's nice to give the reader an idea of the intensity and mood of the sentence, as well as any expectation of continuation in subsequent blurbs. Not all groups share this policy, but I think it's useful.

Index Content Placement Style Art Packaging