Your Guide to Style
By Cindy Layton
A few weeks back I attended a meeting for volunteers who agreed to help in the production of the upcoming Teens in Print, (a publication written by Boston area teens in conjunction with the non-profit WriteBoston and the Boston Globe.)
The group was seated around a conference table and attendees were asked to introduce themselves and tell us their favorite style guide.
Of course I looked down and confirmed to myself that, jeans, even a dark wash, were wholly inappropriate for today. And the black sweater? Not on Anna Wintour’s approved list. I ran through the possibilities: I lean toward Ralph Lauren, classic but updated. Betsey Johnson is too out there.
Wait. Did someone say MLA? APA? Chicago?
Ewww… that style guide. Thank goodness I was the last in line to respond. I was this close to being outed.
When it was my turn I was forced to confess that my degree is in accounting, I have only a passing knowledge of the style guides and editing, for me, has always been about making it up as I go along.
It’s clear I need to update my knowledge of everything style, in a writing and editing context, of course, and, as it turns out, there is much to know.
The better-known guides have targeted audiences. The Associated Press Stylebook is good for newspaper writing. The Chicago Manual is touted for both general use and more specifically to writers and editors. My favorite, although, until now, I never identified it as a style guide, is the classic (and brief) Strunk and White Elements of Style.
Many newspapers have their own, in-house style guides.
Microsoft* has its own style guide. Heck, so does IBM. In fact, many companies publish their own in-house style guides. If a corporation has the power to publish their own rules for writing they’re one step closer to ruling the world, don’t you think?
Many guides target even more specific audiences. Are you a technical writer? Perhaps the Red Hat Style Guide is your thing. Are you a medical writer? There’s a guide for that. A science writer? Biblical studies major? There are multiple guides for that.
And if, for some strange reason, you couldn’t find a style guide to suit you, you can write your own. You can be the boss of your writing.
Because, the same way your personal sense of style is the way you present yourself to the world, the adoption of a writing style guide is a way to present your writing to the world. It reflects the choices you make and the rules you adopt (no mixing plaids and stripes and no white after Labor Day). The consistency with which you apply these rules helps establish your style and the style then becomes your own.
Interested in knowing more? This article by Taylor Houston gives a brief summary of some of the more widely-used style guides.
*Microsoft Word has a feature under “References” which allows choices of the various style guides when inserting citations. Easy-Peasy.
