The Style Guide: Not Just a Rule Book

Information Developer: “Do you have a preferred style?”

Client: “What do you mean ‘style’?”

… the confusion begins.

Information Developer: “You know, AP, Chicago, Microsoft—is there a house style you prefer?”

Client: “What’s that?”

… and so it goes.

Meet Your New Best Friend,The Style Guide
Remember the song “Do Re Mi?” from the movie The Sound of Music? It gave the best advice ever: “Start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.” So let’s do just that.

Forget the days of high school and college term papers and having points deducted from your grade because you put a comma in the wrong place. A style guide is so much more than the literary equivalent of a ruler on the back of your hand. It is a road map for establishing your voice and identity in written communication. It is the tool that helps you make your best first impression. 

Basically, a style guide (also often called a manual or a style book) is a list of principles of punctuation, grammar, word and phrase usage, layout considerations, spelling, and more. But it’s not just a dictionary or grammar book. It’s more a way of collecting both of those helpful pieces into one book and then adding anything else you may need to know in order to make your copy the best it can be.

There are hundreds of style guides available, ranging from those that are industry-specific to those geared more toward academia. Each style guide has its own feel and purpose, no matter how many rules they may have in common. For just a peek at what’s out there, take a look at this list archived online at the Duke library.

In case that feels a little overwhelming, don’t worry.

A Matter of Purpose

Even with so many guides available, chances are you will need to focus your attention on three primary manuals: The Associated Press Stylebook, The Chicago Manual of Style, and the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications.

The Associated Press Stylebook is the go-to resource for newspapers and magazines. It not only covers the proper grammar and usage, but also includes sections on legal issues (such as libel, fair use, copyright infringement), social media, sports and business reporting, and media law. If you need to know how to reference a foreign dignitary or format baseball scores in running copy, then this is the book you need.

The Chicago Manual of Style is a general, in-depth guide that gives detailed analysis and examples for an almost complete list of grammar and usage topics. Whether you’re working with conversational or formal copy, the Chicago manual is a valuable resource for writers in various industries, from marketing to academia. Think of it as a Strunk & White after a year of hitting the gym to get ripped.

The Microsoft Manual of Style forTechnical Publications is one of the key guides for writing in our new technology-driven world. Are you sending e-mail, email, or E-mail? Did you surf the Web, the web, or just the Internet? What does WYSIWYG mean anyway? The Microsoft Manual not only takes the confusion out of technology words and usage, it covers standards for online communication, Web-related references, writing and tagging Web content, and much more.

In addition to these handy references, your company or client may have a style guide of its own. They often borrow from one of these (or other) guides, then add common phrases, spellings and usages that are specific to their own segment of the market. For example, does a client’s name end with Inc., or is Incorporated always spelled out? Does a manufacturer’s major product end with the name or does it require the trademark symbol too? Is a not-for-profit company’s key supporter ADCO, Adco or AdCo? While these might seem like minor issues, they are actually important considerations for a company aiming for a consistent look and feel.

The Benefits of Style

Regardless of your preferred style, using a style guide puts you at the head of the class. Here are just a few reasons why:

1. It helps maintain consistent usage, no matter who is creating a document.
2. It establishes a standard for “correct” usage, rather than confusing the issue with “but I’ve always seen it this way” arguments.
3. It eliminates the repetition of such questions as “Is it Web site or website?” each time you create a new document.
4. It can be easily updated to accommodate necessary changes and redistributed.
5. It facilitates training of employees by covering a broad range of grammar, spelling, and usage rules without the expense of in-service classes.
6. It serves as a reference when clients and/or managers question changes in their documents.

The Fairy-tale Ending?

Information Developer: “Do you have a preferred style?”

Client: “Absolutely. I’ll send you a copy of it. And for anything not listed there, we default to Chicago.”

… and thus the confusion ends.

… and so it could go.

Written by: Sean Taylor, ProEdit

If you don’t currently have a working style guide and would like help developing one, contact ProEdit.