Style Manuals: A Bleg.

FYI a bleg is a blog that begs for an answer, I should probably put that in the dictionary!

Here goes. Those of you who read this probably regard my writing as you would the writing of a musky guide. I spent my high school years looking down at my English classes and did not learn to properly use punctuation (duhhhh!). Oh sure, I have the basics down like periods, exclamation marks, and question marks but the comma (non-list), the colon, the semi-colon , the dash & hyphen, the apostrophe (I am fairly comfy with this one), and quote marks (I am fairly comfy with this one as well). In my college years the profs were not very interested in such mechanics so I was never taken to the woodshed (though other profs would, but their purpose was not writing so much as lab reports and the like).

One of the magazines I am interested in trying to get published in adheres to the Chicago Style Manual but that manual seems a trifle advanced for my needs. In college I used to use the Harbrace manual but have long since lost that manual and am thinking about getting it again. There are two sorts of manuals, a regular one and a college manual. Are you familiar with either one? Which sounds right for my needs?

Thanks!