The Australian Manual of Style (MEETING DETAILS UPDATED)
6:30 pm, Wednesday, 30 September 2020.
Two options this month:
- Attend via Zoom at 6:30pm. A link will be sent to members.
- Register to attend in person (limited numbers) at St Mark’s Theological College. See details below.
This meeting will feature Emeritus Professor Pam Peters talking about the Australian Manual of Style (AMOS).
AMOS is a new online style manual and a different publication altogether from the Australian Government Style Manual being produced by the DTA, about which Megan Newson addressed us earlier this year. AMOS is a joint project between Macquarie University and Canberra-based communications company Biotext, and builds on the existing Australian Manual of Scientific Style to include guidance on writing in different subject areas. It is designed to support a wide range of writing beyond government publications and contains sections on punctuation, spelling and grammar, as well as advice on information design principles and designing content for ease of access online. Its scope is therefore much broader than the government Style Manual. It’s still in development but will be over 550 pages when it’s launched.
Professor Peters is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and an active researcher within the Department of Linguistics and Centre for Language Sciences at Macquarie University. She directs several major projects, including Editorial style and online accessibility for general and scientific writing (via the StyleHub platform, in partnership with Biotext). Pam was a member of the Editorial Committee of the Macquarie Dictionary from 1986 to 2006, and founding editor (1992) of Australian Style magazine. Her best-known monographs are the Cambridge Australian English Style Guide (1995), the Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage (2007) and the international Cambridge Guide to English Usage (2004). More recently, she authored the Cambridge Dictionary of English Grammar (2013). Pam became a Distinguished Editor in 2008. She has been a member of the ABC’s advisory committee on broadcasting language since 1996.
For more details about AMOS, make sure you read Professor Peters’s article in the September edition of the CSE newsletter ACTive Voice.
Attending in person at St Mark’s Theological College
We are planning to host a limited number of people at St Mark’s: 20 maximum, in a room approved for 24. If you wish to attend in person, please contact the President, Eris Harrison, using the contact form on this website (select President in the drop-down). You will be asked to sign in at the door.
We will supply hand sanitiser and space the chairs comfortably apart. BYO mask if you want. Please don’t attend if you start to feel ill or show any cold symptoms.
Please notify Eris if you change your mind about going, so that anyone on a waiting list can be included in your stead.
Where and when
Durie Room, St Mark’s National Theological Centre, 15 Blackall St, Barton (not Blackall Place). Google maps reference.
Room opens at 5:45pm, Wednesday 30 September, presentation begins at 6:30. Light refreshments before and after; all welcome.
Attending via Zoom
If you plan to attend online, you do not need to register. The link will be sent around as usual.
To check your version: sign into the desktop app > click on your profile picture or initials > select ‘Help’ from the drop-down menu > select ‘About Zoom’ from the menu that appears at the side. A window will appear showing your version number.
To update your version: sign into the desktop app > click on your profile picture or initials > select ‘Check for updates’ from the drop-down menu. A window will appear, ‘Checking for updates’, then ‘Updates available!’ (yes, with an exclamation mark). The update will download in a few seconds – an ‘Update’ button will appear when it is ready. Click the button – the update will take another few seconds to install.
Success!