A style guide or style manual is a set of standards for the writing and design of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication, organization or field. The implementation of a style guide provides uniformity in style and formatting of a document.

A set of standards for a specific organization is often known as "house style". Style guides are common for general and specialized use, for the general reading and writing audience, and for students and scholars of various academic disciplines, medicine, journalism, the law, government, business, and industry.

Organizations advocating for social minorities sometimes establish what they believe to be fair and correct language treatment of their audiences.

Some style guides focus on graphic design, focusing on such topics as typography and white space. Web site style guides cover a publication's visual and technical aspects, along with text.

Many style guides are revised periodically to accommodate changes in conventions and usage. The Associated Press, for example, revises its stylebook annually.

Types of style guides

Publishers' style guides establish house rules for language use, such as spelling, italics and punctuation; their major purpose is consistency. They are rulebooks for writers, ensuring consistent language. Authors are asked or required to use a style guide in preparing their work for publication; copy editors are charged with enforcing the publishing house's style.

Academic organization and university style guides are rigorous about documentation formatting style for citations and bibliographies used for preparing term papers for course credit and manuscripts for publication. Professional scholars are advised to follow the style guides of organizations in their disciplines when they submit articles and books to academic journals and academic book publishers in those disciplines for consideration of publication. Once they have accepted work for publication, publishers provide authors with their own guidelines and specifications, which may differ from those required for submission, and editors may assist authors in preparing their work for press.

A page from an "identity standards manual"-so named for the field of graphic design that focuses on corporate identity design and branding-that identifies color standards to be used.

Some organizations, other than those previously mentioned, produce style guides for either internal or external use. For example, communications and public relations departments of business and nonprofit organizations have style guides for their publications (newsletters, news releases, web sites). Organizations advocating for social minorities sometimes establish what they believe to be fair and correct language treatment of their audiences.

Many publications (notably newspapers) use graphic design style guides to demonstrate the preferred layout and formatting of a published page. They often are extremely detailed in specifying, for example, which fonts and colors to use. Such guides allow a large design team to produce visually consistent work for the organization.

Examples

International

Several basic style guides for technical and scientific communication have been defined by international standards organizations. These are often used as elements of and refined in more specialized style guides that are specific to a subject, region or organization. One example is ISO 215 - Presentation of contributions to periodicals & other serials.

Australia

• Style Manual: For Authors, Editors and Printers Snooks & Co for the Department of Finance and Administration. 6th ed. ISBN 0701636483.

Canada

• The Canadian Style: A Guide to Writing and Editing: by Dundurn Press in co-operation with Public Works and the Government Services Canada Translation Bureau. ISBN 1550022768.
• CP Stylebook: Guide to newspaper style in Canada maintained by the Canadian Press. ISBN 0920009387.

United Kingdom

General

• Copy-editing: The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Authors and Publishers Judith Butcher. 3rd ed. 1992 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 40074 0
• Fowler's Modern English Usage. Ed. R. W. Burchfield. Rev. 3rd ed. London: Clarendon Press, 2004. ISBN 0-19-861021-1 (hardcover). Based on Fowler's Modern English Usage, by Henry Watson Fowler.
• The King's English, by Henry Watson Fowler and Francis George Fowler.
• The Oxford Style Manual (2003 ed.). Combines The Oxford Guide to Style and The Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors, which concentrates on common problems.
• The Complete Plain Words, by Sir Ernest Gowers.
• Usage and Abusage, by Eric Partridge.

Journalism

• The BBC News Style Guide: by the British Broadcasting Corporation.
• The Economist Style Guide: by The Economist (UK).
• The Guardian Style Guide: by The Guardian (United Kingdom)
• The Times Style and Usage Guide, by The Times.
• The Associated Press Stylebook, by The Associated Press.

United States

In the United States, most nonjournalism writing follows the Chicago Manual of Style,^[1] while most newspapers base their style on the Associated Press Stylebook. A classic style guide for the general public is The Elements of Style.

General

• The Careful Writer, by Theodore Bernstein.
• The Elements of Style. By William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White. (Commonly called "Strunk and White")

Academic papers

• A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, Seventh Edition: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers, by Kate L. Turabian. (Commonly called "Turabian".)
• MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers by Joseph Gibaldi. (Commonly called "MLA".)
• Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association by the American Psychological Association. Primarily used in social sciences. (Commonly called "APA".)

Journalism

• The Associated Press Stylebook. By the Associated Press (AP).

General publishing

• The Chicago Manual of Style, by University of Chicago Press staff.
• Words into Type, by Marjorie E. Skillin, Robert M. Gay, et al.

Web publishing

• Yahoo! Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing and Creating Content for the Web, by Chris Barr and the Yahoo! Editorial Staff

See also

References

External links

Look up stylebook or usage in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• What is a Style Guide and Why Would I Need One?.
• But the stylebook says ... -- Blog post about stylebook abuse, by Bill Walsh of The Washington Post
• Handouts about writing style guides, from a conferences of the American Copy Editors Society in 2007
  • How to Write a Stylebook in 10 Easy Steps, by William G. Connolly
  • Creating an In-House Stylebook, by Doug Kouma of Meredith Special Interest Media
• Language Log » Searching 43 stylebooks
• OnlineStylebooks.com