Nick, Clawhauser, and Chief Bogo support the serial comma too. (Duke, Bellwether and Doug don't.)



I own the sixteenth and seventeenth (pictured) editions of The Chicowgo Chicago Manual of Style. It is an American English style guide, and I have recommended it to writers many times over the years, even if just for reference when writing fan fiction.



In Chicago, you will learn that a hyphen (-), an en dash (–), and an em dash (—) are not the same thing.



You will learn about the ellipsis (. . .), which often gets overused in fan fiction and in anything informal, and how to properly space one ("word...word" is incorrect; "word... word" is incorrect; "word . . . word" is correct; "word ... word," which lacks spaces between the periods, I use on FanFiction.net since nonbreaking spaces aren't supported there).



You will learn that plurals are not to be formed with apostrophes ("DVDs" is correct, "DVD's" is not; "I ate two apples" is correct, "I ate two apple's" is absolutely not correct!). You will learn—and should already know by now—the difference between "its" (possessive) and "it's" (contraction of "it is").



You will learn how certain titles are supposed to be italicized but others are supposed to be placed inside quotation marks. The general rule is that titles of larger works get italicized (movies, TV shows, books, music albums, etc.) and titles of smaller works get placed inside quotation marks (individual TV show episodes, chapters of books, songs, etc.). For example, "Gone in a Flash" is a 2009 episode of Nickelodeon's The Penguins of Madagascar. (I consider the titles of fanfics the same as the titles of books.)



If you want to go totally crazy and become moderately pedantic like yours truly, Chicago will also tell you about italicizing the names of ships—RMS Titanic, USS Massachusetts (BB-59), SS Edmund Fitzgerald.



(Hmm, if "ships" are supposed to be italicized, do I have to start italicizing WildeHopps now?)



You don't have to follow everything in The Chicago Manual of Style or read it cover to cover—I don't and I haven't—but I think it's still a good thing to have access to when writing. Like caffeine, cheese crackers, and good lighting.