About Dr. Abel Scribe PhD

Doc Who?

A number of years ago a small group of grad students pooled their efforts to create a simple bibliographic program called AScribe--The Personal Card Catalog and Reference Editor for Research Sources. The program automatically formatted references in 10 different styles. From "AScribe" the name "Abel Scribe" emerged, and since we had newly minted PhD's, he was made one too. The program was written in a DOS based programming language, now obsolete.

To write software to automatically format references, we developed a series of style sheets to work from. The style sheets provided sample references to every source likely to be needed in writing a research paper. Eventually, these were put into the Windows Help system to keep them organized. They proved so popular on the Internet they were expanded to the current Writer's Guide series.

It is unreasonable to ask a student to buy a $25-30 style guide to write one paper for a single course in a subject not their major. The Writer's Guides were designed to meet this need. They provide enough information for most research papers.

What is the publication format for the guides?

The old Windows Help system (last used with Windows 95) provides for very precise formatting with a Web-page-like interface. No other electronic publishing tool provides the precision needed for spacing and formatting required by a style guide, combined with extensive internal linking and popup notes. The reader comes already installed with all Windows 32-bit systems. These guides are being abstracted to PDF style sheets that have the virtue of being readily printed, although they lack the depth of coverage the style guides.

Would you like some help republishing the guides?

From time to time people have offered to port the style guides to the new Windows Help system or some other electronic publishing tool. While the offer is appreciated, the style guides are not static documents. New material is added when appropriate, and errors corrected. Recently, the guides have been updated annually. When an electronic publishing tool with the features and precision of the old WinHelp system--and its ease of use--is developed, it will be pursued. Please note, all the style sheets and guides by Doc Scribe are copyrighted material. The incorporation of this material in a commercial product is not permitted.

Can the guides or other documents or pages be mirrored or redistributed?

Yes. Users may print, copy, and distribute free documents on this site without charge for not-for-profit, educational purposes. The style guides are revised on a regular basis. You are advised to link directly to a document rather than post it to another site. No commercial use is permitted--you may not add commercial links, pop-ups, or advertising to any document or page.

Can the guides be used for a classroom instruction?

Instructors are welcome to use the guides or style sheets in their classrooms. No additional permission is required.

Is advertising going to be added to the guides and style sheets?

No. It is the policy at docstyles.com not to include advertising in any style guides or style sheets other than to provide unpromoted links to published style guides and useful resources at amazon.com or other quality vendors. Amazon.com will often sell a guide at far below the retail price found in campus bookstores. For example, the Chicago Manual of Style sells for $55 retail, and $38.50 at amazon.com with no tax and free shipping. This is information worth sharing.

My system can't read the guide.

Windows uses file extensions to link a file to a program. These are the last three or four characters after the period in the file name. They may be invisible unless you have set the Windows Explorer to view them. This option can be enabled in Windows Explorer by clicking the Tools menu, Folder Options, then View tab. Clear the check mark before "Hide file extensions . . . " The guide files have the extension ".hlp." They need to be associated with winhlp32.exe in the Windows folder of directory. If a system is unable to read a guide this is the likely problem. To fix it, use Windows Explorer to find the guide file (most are named "apastyle.hlp" or "mlastyle.hlp" and so on) in the C:\Docstyles folder. Right click on the file and Browse to C:\Windows to select winhlp32.exe. Keywords: file extension, file type, associating files. Windows is preset to associate these files correctly, but a few users have experienced problems. If this happens to you, scan for viruses too.

Are the guides accurate?

Mostly, yes. The Writer's Guides are developed from a rigid outline. With each review and update the guides become more accurate and refined, typos are corrected, and the content better focused on helping you draft your research papers. Check for an updated version before working on a major project.

Sometimes style guides are incomplete. For example, neither the MLA Handbook (2003) or even the Chicago Manual of Style (2003) offer formats for headings or subheadings in papers. However, the MLA's own journal--PMLA--does use headings in published papers, and Turabian's Manual for Writer's offers a couple of formats in Chicago style. These formats are featured in our guides, but not "official."

We also get help. For example, the APA guide showed a paragraph indent beginning the abstract for a paper. This was incorrect, and a user pointed it out. It has since been corrected. Others have also helped. The guides are revised about twice a year to reflect these updates and corrections.

When I update a guide do I have to uninstall the old one first?

No, unless you moved it. The installation program will update the file for you.

Aren't you violating copyright laws by publishing these guides?

No. By law (17 U.S.C. 102(b)) "the original and creative word sequences in [a text] are protected by copyright, but a writing style itself is in the public domain, no matter how original it is" (Stephen Fishman, The Copyright Handbook. 3rd. ed. Berkeley, CA: Nolo Press, 1998). You cannot copyright a research (or any) style, nor can you copyright a language, even a programming language. They belong to everyone. This is true of all styles, including the styles featured in our guides.

The rationale for this is not difficult to understand. For example, if you wrote a book and stored it on your PC in Microsoft Word, would it then belong to Microsoft? After all, it's in their word processor coding language. Wouldn't it be great to get a copyright on all the works in the style of the plays of William Shakespeare, the paintings of Rembrandt, or even the musical style Rock'n Roll? If you could secure a copyright on a style, then you would own the copyright on everything published in that style. More recently the courts have denied copyright protection to programming languages, even those invented by Microsoft and IBM!

Copyright laws provide for the fair use of copyrighted material for educational purposes, reviews, and scholarship. All the guides and style sheets heavily cite and quote the relevant style manuals. None of the quoted content of any guide comes anywhere near as much as 1% of any copyrighted work, and no profits are made by doing so. These citations are intended to help the user grow into the published style manual if that is important for their career. These are references in the best sense.

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