A style guide or manual of style is a set of standards for the writing, formatting, and design of documents. It is often called a style sheet, although that term also has multiple other meanings. The standards can be applied either for general use, or be required usage for an individual publication, a particular organization, or a specific field. A style guide establishes standard style requirements to improve

communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inqu ...

by ensuring consistency both within a document, and across multiple documents. Because practices vary, a style guide may set out standards to be used in areas such as

punctuation Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. A ...

, capitalization, citing sources, formatting of numbers and dates, table appearance and other areas. The style guide may require certain

best practice A best practice is a method or technique that has been generally accepted as superior to other known alternatives because it often produces results that are superior to those achieved by other means or because it has become a standard way of doing ...

s in

writing style In literature, writing style is the manner of expressing thought in language characteristic of an individual, period, school, or nation. As Bryan Ray notes, however, style is a broader concern, one that can describe "readers' relationships with, t ...

, usage, language composition, visual composition,

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mo ...

, and

typography Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), an ...

. For

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, f ...

and

technical Technical may refer to: * Technical (vehicle), an improvised fighting vehicle * Technical analysis, a discipline for forecasting the future direction of prices through the study of past market data * Technical drawing, showing how something is co ...

documents, a guide may also enforce the best practice in

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ...

(such as authorship, research ethics, and disclosure) and compliance (

and

regulatory Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. Fo ...

). For translations, a style guide may be used to enforce consistent grammar choices such as tenses, formality levels in tones, and localization decisions such as units of measurements. Style guides are specialized in a variety of ways, from the general use of a broad public audience, to a wide variety of specialized uses, such as for students and scholars of various

academic disciplines An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosoph ...

medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, and Health promotion ...

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (pro ...

, the law,

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government ...

, business in general, and specific

industries Industry may refer to: Economics * Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity * Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery * The wider industrial secto ...

. The term house style refers to the individual style manual of a particular

publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

or organization.

Varieties

Style guides vary widely in scope and size, and writers working in most large industries or professional sectors reference a specific style guide, written for their industry or sector when writing very specialized document types. These guides are useful primarily for only peer-to-peer specialist documentation or to help writers working in specific industries and/or sectors communicate highly technical information in scholarly articles or industry

white paper A white paper is a report or guide that informs readers concisely about a complex issue and presents the issuing body's philosophy on the matter. It is meant to help readers understand an issue, solve a problem, or make a decision. A white pape ...

s. Notable exceptions are '' The Associated Press Stylebook'' and ''

The Chicago Manual of Style ''The Chicago Manual of Style'' (abbreviated in writing as ''CMOS'' or ''CMS'', or sometimes as ''Chicago'') is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 17 editions have prescribed writ ...

,'' both of which focus on "general", third-person English. ''The Associated Press Stylebook'' is written for journalists, and ''The Chicago Manual of Style'' is written for academic writing.

Sizes

This variety in scope and length is enabled by the cascading of one style over another, in a way analogous to how styles cascade in web development and in desktop cascade over CSS styles. A short style guide is often called a ''style sheet''. A comprehensive guide tends to be long and is often called a ''style manual'' or ''manual of style'' (''MOS'' or ''MoS''). In many cases, a project such as one

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this phys ...

journal A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to: * Bullet journal, a method of personal organization *Diary, a record of what happened over the course of a day or other period *Daybook, also known as a general journal, a ...

, or monograph series typically has a short style sheet that cascades over the somewhat larger style guide of an organization such as a publishing company, whose content is usually called ''house style''. Most house styles, in turn, cascade over an ''industry-wide or profession-wide style manual'' that is even more comprehensive. Some examples of these industry style guides include the following: * ACS style, AMA style, and CSE style for various hard sciences *

AP Stylebook The ''AP Stylebook'', also known by its full name ''The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law'', is an American English grammar style and usage guide created by American journalists working for or connected with the Associated P ...

for journalism and all types of internal and external corporate communications *

APA style APA style (also known as APA format) is a writing style and format for academic documents such as scholarly journal articles and books. It is commonly used for citing sources within the field of behavioral and social sciences, including sociol ...

and ASA style for the social sciences * Bluebook style for law *

(CMOS) and Oxford style for academic writing and publishing *

MLA style ''MLA Handbook'' (9th ed., 2021), formerly ''MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers'' (1977–2009), establishes a system for documenting sources in scholarly writing. It is published by the Modern Language Association, which is based in th ...

for language and literature studies, and normatively in American secondary education * USGPO style and AGPS style for government publications Finally, these reference works cascade over the orthographic norms of the language in use (for example,

English orthography English orthography is the writing system used to represent spoken English, allowing readers to connect the graphemes to sound and to meaning. It includes English's norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation, word breaks, emphasis, ...

for English-language publications). This, of course, may be subject to national variety, such as the different varieties of American English and British English.

Topics

Some style guides focus on specific topic areas such as graphic design, including

. Website style guides cover a publication's visual and technical aspects along with text. Style guides that cover usage may suggest ways of describing people that avoid

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

sexism Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers prima ...

, and

homophobia Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred or antipathy ...

. Guides in specific scientific and technical fields cover

nomenclature Nomenclature (, ) is a system of names or terms, or the rules for forming these terms in a particular field of arts or sciences. The principles of naming vary from the relatively informal conventions of everyday speech to the internationally agre ...

, which specifies names or classifying labels that are preferred because they are clear, standardized, and ontologically sound (e.g.,

taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

chemical nomenclature A chemical nomenclature is a set of rules to generate systematic names for chemical compounds. The nomenclature used most frequently worldwide is the one created and developed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). The ...

, and gene nomenclature).

Updating

Most style guides are revised from time to time to accommodate changes in conventions and usage. The frequency of updating and the

revision control In software engineering, version control (also known as revision control, source control, or source code management) is a class of systems responsible for managing changes to computer programs, documents, large web sites, or other collections o ...

are determined by the subject. For style manuals in

reference work A reference work is a work, such as a paper, book or periodical (or their electronic equivalents), to which one can refer for information. The information is intended to be found quickly when needed. Such works are usually ''referred'' to ...

format, new editions typically appear every 1 to 20 years. For example, the

is revised annually, and, as of 2021, the Chicago, APA, and ASA manuals are in their 17th, 7th, and 4th editions, respectively. Many house styles and individual project styles change more frequently, especially for new projects.

References

External links

But the stylebook says ...
– Blog post about stylebook abuse, by Bill Walsh of ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...