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 Style is a manner of doing or presenting things and may refer to: * Architectural style, the features that make a building or structure historically identifiable * Design, the process of creating something * Fashion, a prevailing mode of clothing ...

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 inqui ...

by ensuring

consistency In classical deductive logic, a consistent theory is one that does not lead to a logical contradiction. The lack of contradiction can be defined in either semantic or syntactic terms. The semantic definition states that a theory is consistent ...

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. An ...

capitalization Capitalization (American English) or capitalisation (British English) is writing a word with its first letter as a capital letter (uppercase letter) and the remaining letters in lower case, in writing systems with a case distinction. The term ...

citing sources A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose of ...

, formatting of numbers and dates,

table Table may refer to: * Table (furniture), a piece of furniture with a flat surface and one or more legs * Table (landform), a flat area of land * Table (information), a data arrangement with rows and columns * Table (database), how the table data ...

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 The usage of a language is the ways in which its written and spoken variations are routinely employed by its speakers; that is, it refers to "the collective habits of a language's native speakers", as opposed to idealized models of how a language ...

, 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 ...

, 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), ...

. 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, ...

and technical 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, concer ...

(such as

authorship An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

research ethics Research is " creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness ...

, and

disclosure Disclosure may refer to: Arts and media * ''Disclosure'' (The Gathering album), 2012 *Disclosure (band), a UK-based garage/electronic duo * ''Disclosure'' (novel), 1994 novel written by Michael Crichton ** ''Disclosure'' (1994 film), an American ...

) and compliance ( technical 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 discipline, academic disciplines, Medical publishing, medicine, journalism, the Legal publication, law, Government Publishing Office, government, business in general, and specific Industry (economics), industries. The term house style refers to the individual style manual of a particular publisher 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 papers. Notable exceptions are ''The Associated Press Stylebook'' and ''The Chicago Manual of Style,'' 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 style sheet (web development), in web development and style sheet (desktop publishing), 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, academic journal, journal, 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 Manual of Style, AMA style, and CSE style for various hard sciences * AP Stylebook for journalism and all types of internal and external corporate communications * APA style and ASA style for the social sciences * Bluebook style for law * The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) and Hart's Rules, Oxford style for academic writing and publishing * MLA Handbook, MLA style for language and literature studies, and normatively in Secondary education in the United States, American secondary education * United States Government Printing Office#GPO's Style Manual, USGPO style and Australian Government Publishing Service, AGPS style for government publications Finally, these reference works cascade over the orthography, orthographic norms of the language in use (for example, English orthography for English-language publications). This, of course, may be subject to national variety, such as comparison of American and British English, 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

may suggest ways of describing people that avoid racism, sexism, and homophobia. Guides in specific scientific and technical fields cover nomenclature, which specifies names or classifying labels that are preferred because they are clear, standardized, and ontology, ontologically sound (e.g., taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, chemical nomenclature, and gene nomenclature).

Updating

Most style guides are revised from time to time to accommodate changes in conventions and

. The frequency of updating and the revision control are determined by the subject. For style manuals in reference work format, new edition (book), editions typically appear every 1 to 20 years. For example, the AP Stylebook 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