Customer Reviews:
 On balance worth having June 23, 2008
Mist of Time (UK)
Yes it isn't an update to the original Harts, so on that basis it loses a star due to OUP's re-use of the brand for something new.
Judging the book on its own merits, it is concise, clear, compact and reasonably authoritative. I would also say it goes wider than some style guides and looks at overall composition of a book (not all of which would be relevant to an author).
It also covers a very broad range of written material as you would expect from OUP, including mathematics, indexing, tables, captions and so forth.
Having had a lot of exposure to composition this is I would say written from the write point of view - I just need to find an second hand copy to satisfy my nostalgia for the original!
 Invaluable May 29, 2008
lexo1941 (Dublin, Ireland)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This revised edition of the classic 'Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers' is a pocket-sized goldmine of advice about good, clear English style and punctuation.
Fans of earlier editions may be disappointed at the extent of the revision; not a lot of the content of previous editions is left in the book. The most obvious cuts have been the advice to compositors, which were presumably made because the trade of compositor is now pretty much defunct in the world of digital printing. But they can console themselves, as I do, with the knowledge that older editions of the book are still available; my own (the 37th edition, trivia fans) is still on the shelf, and there are plenty of secondhand copies out there, if you're curious and want a taste of an earlier era of the OUP. In the meantime, it is ridiculous for working writers and editors to be nostalgic for redundant information in a book that was always designed to be of practical use.
It was a wise decision of the OUP to break up the huge and unwieldy Oxford Style Manual into the pocket-sized volumes of New Hart's Rules and the Dictionary for Writers and Editors. The advice is rock-solid, and the return to the small format makes the books far more manageable.
This is by far the most useful and concise style manual that I have encountered. I use it on a daily basis. I recommend it without reservation.
 JUST ANOTHER STYLE MANUAL May 18, 2006
Matthew Graham (South East England)
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
If you are familiar with Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers, this new edition can only disappoint you, and bitterly at that. It has stripped away all the vital and excellent information to make your typesetting look professional and replaced it with mountains of advice for copy editors. Unfortunately this ground is already better covered elsewhere, while the advice for compositors is lost forever. Also lost is much of the archaic charm.
Hart's "Rules" December 8, 2005
8 out of 37 found this review helpful
a Very useful and good guide for anybody wanting to improve there writing skills and presentation skills and rules for when, and when to not, use things like punctuation
has helped me no end and I always keep it to hand whenever writing thing's
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