|
|
|
|
Style guide
|
| |
|
| |
A style guide or style manual is a set of standards for design and writing of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication or organization. Style guides are prevalent for general and specialized use, for the general reading and writing audience, and for students and scholars of the various academic disciplines, medicine, journalism, the law, government, business, and industry. Some style guides focus on graphic design, covering such topics as typography and white space.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'Style guide' Start a new discussion about 'Style guide' Answer questions from other users |
Encyclopedia
A style guide or style manual is a set of standards for design and writing of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication or organization. Style guides are prevalent for general and specialized use, for the general reading and writing audience, and for students and scholars of the various academic disciplines, medicine, journalism, the law, government, business, and industry. Some style guides focus on graphic design, covering such topics as typography and white space. Web site style guides focus on a publication's visual and technical aspects, prose style, best usage, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and fairness.
Many style guides are revised periodically to accommodate changes in conventions and usage. For example, the stylebook of the Associated Press is updated annually.
For academia and publishing
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.
Indexing of the published work, which can be a tedious task, can be done by the author, by a professional editorial indexer, or by computer software. If done by the author or close collaborators of the author who are not professional indexers, the work is called "self-indexed".
For general use
Some style guides are created for the general public, and may adopt the approaches of publishing houses and newspapers. Others, such as Fowler's Modern English Usage, third edition, report how language is practiced in a given area and outline how phrases, punctuation and grammar are actually used.
John Updike wrote in The New Yorker on Robert Burchfield's re-writing of Fowler's Modern English Usage: "To Burchfield, the English language is a battlefield upon which he functions as a non-combatant observer." Burchfield responded: "I believe that 'stark preachments' belong to an earlier age of comment on English usage.... Linguistic correctness is perhaps the dominant theme of this book."
Specialized guides
Some organizations, other than the aforementioned ones, 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.
Graphic design guides
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. Some examples are:
- EN-15038:2006 — European Standard for Translation Services Annex D (informative)
- ISO 8 — Presentation of periodicals
- ISO 18 — Contents lists of periodicals
- ISO 31 — Quantities & units
- ISO 214 — Abstracts for publication & documentation
- ISO 215 — Presentation of contributions to periodicals & other serials
- ISO 690 — Bibliographic references — Content, form & structure
- ISO 832 — Bibliographic references — Abbreviations of typical words
- ISO 999 — Index of a publication
- ISO 1086 — Title leaves of a book
- ISO 2145 — Numbering of divisions & subdivisions in written documents
- ISO 5966 — Presentation of scientific & technical reports
- ISO 6357 — Spine titles on books & other publications
- ISO 7144 — Presentation of theses & similar documents
- ISO 9241 — Ergonomics of Human System Interaction
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.
Newspapers
- CP Stylebook: Guide to newspaper style in Canada maintained by the Canadian Press. ISBN 0920009387.
- The Globe and Mail Style Book: Originally created to help writers and editors at the Globe and Mail present clear, accurate and concise stories. ISBN 0771056850
United Kingdom
General
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.
United States
In the United States, most books found in bookstores and libraries follow the Chicago Manual of Style, while most newspapers base their styles upon the Associated Press Stylebook. A classic style guide for the general public is The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White.
For general writing
- Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words: A Writer's Guide to Getting It Right, by Bill Bryson.
- The Classics of Style — presents writing guidance from William Strunk, Jr., Emerson, Whitman, Poe, and other writers.
- The Elements of Style. By William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White. (Often referred to as "Strunk and White".)
For legal documents
For academic papers
For journalism
For technical writing
Style guides are particularly important in technical writing projects. Where technical writing is undertaken in a large team or project, it is important that the finished documentation is devoid of any one individual's discernible personal style. A style guide is just one of the tools that can be used to help achieve this along with the use of specific standards, e.g., ATA100 or AECMA S1000D in the aerospace and defense industries. Some disciplines use a style guide published by a professional society, such as the one offered by the American Physical Society or the one from the American Chemical Society referenced below.
For electronic publishing
For the computer industry (software and hardware)
- Apple Publications Style Guide by Apple Inc. Provides editorial guidelines for text in Apple instructional publications, technical documentation, reference information, training programs, and the software user interface.
- Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications, by Microsoft Corporation. Provides a style standard for technical documentation including use of terminology, conventions, procedure, design treatments, and punctuation and grammar usage.
- Read Me First! A Style Guide for the Computer Industry, by Sun Technical Publications.
Editorial style guides on preparing a manuscript for publication
Academic
- A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (frequently called "Turabian style")—Published by Kate L. Turabian, the graduate school dissertation secretary at the University of Chicago from 1930 to 1958. The school required her approval for every master's thesis and doctoral dissertation. Her stylistic rules closely follow those in The Chicago Manual of Style, although there are some differences.
- ACS Style Guide—for scientific papers published in journals of the American Chemical Society.
- American Medical Association Manual of Style—for medical papers published in journals of the American Medical Association.
- American Psychological Association Style Guide—for the social sciences; published by the American Psychological Association.
- American Sociological Association Style Guide—for the social sciences; published by the American Sociological Association.
- Geoscience Reporting Guidelines—for geoscience reports in industry, academia and other disciplines.
- IEEE Style—used in many technical research papers, especially those relating to computer science.
- MHRA Style Guide—for the arts and humanities; published by the Modern Humanities Research Association. Available as a free download (see article).
- MLA Style Manual, 3rd ed., and the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th ed.—for subjects in the arts and the humanities; published by the Modern Language Association of America (MLA).
- Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, 7th ed—for scientific papers published by the Council of Science Editors (CSE), a group formerly known as the Council of Biology Editors (CBE).
- The Chicago Manual of Style—required by some academic publishers for books and journal publications.
- The Style Manual for Political Science—used by many American political science journals; published by the American Political Science Association.
See also
External links
General use of style guides
American English
U.S. government publications
British English
- .
- .
- .
- (online version; available as printed book as well).
- ("A handbook for authors and translators in the European Commission" – executive branch of the European Union.)
Canadian English
- – Adapts CP Stylebook for university student use.
International organizations
Academia
Medical journals
- .
- Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (Updated Feb. 2006).
Scientific journals
- for Physics journal published by Taylor & Francis Group (Taylor & Francis journals).
- for Nature. (MS Word document file.)
- : Formatting Guidelines for Electronic Submission of Revised Manuscripts.
WWW
- Rules and Guidelines for Publishing and Participating on OSNews, by T. Holwerda. OSNews, 2007.
- , 2nd ed., by Patrick Lynch and Sarah Horton.
|
| |
|
|
