Style Guides and Style Sheets

Presenters: Kris Fulsaas and Ann Gosch (members)

Day of Meeting: May 12, 2008

The program began with a general explanation of a style guide (sometimes also known as a style sheet).

A style guide contains rules for an editor or writer to follow that are not otherwise covered in another guide or set of rules. Style guides typically cover rules for which there is no "right or wrong" way, indicating a publisher's preferences.

The purpose of a style guide is to create consistency in publications. The ability to create consistency is one sign of a good copyeditor.

Examples of information found in style guides:

  • Whether or not to capitalize or italicize certain words

  • Punctuation issues (e.g., U.S. vs. US; farmer's/farmers'/farmers market)

  • Title style (e.g., sentence vs. headline)

  • When to spell out numbers

  • Variant spellings (grey vs. gray)

  • Whether to use the serial comma

  • A style guide may provide rules for consistency across a single document, across a group of documents produced by a company, or across a group of books or magazines produced by a publisher.

Published style manuals include:

  • The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS), 15th edition published 2003.

  • The Associated Press (AP) Stylebook, updated every year.

  • Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications, used for Microsoft documents and many Internet publications

  • U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) Style Manual, used for government contracts. Useful for spelling of countries and their leaders, among other things.

  • Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, used for academic and professional journals.

  • MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, used for academic publications.

  • Gregg Reference Manual, corporate/business style manual; includes letters and other business forms. Ann noted that this is more "user-­friendly" than some of the other style manuals.

Some publishers use a mix of styles from one or more style guides. An in­-house style guide may be based on one of the published guides, but then specify variations based on the publisher's preference.

Kris noted that many magazines hybridize their styles.

Kris observed that publishers often specify a dictionary to follow as well as a style manual.

House Style Sheets

The discussion turned to three types of in­house style sheets that publishers may use. Extensive house style sheet: This sheet largely or completely replaces the standard manuals listed above. Ann produced an extensive style guide for Multi-Care's Office of Philanthropy. Its sections included an introduction (purpose of the guide, importance of consistency); grammar rules (e.g., parallel structure, verb agreement); tips on how to enhance readability; a grid covering a wide range of usage topics with examples; and a word list (alphabetical listing of words showing spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, and the like).

House style sheet that follows a published style guide: This style sheet specifies a published style guide (e.g., The AP Stylebook for magazines/newspapers, CMS for many books). It often identifies variations that the publisher prefers. This general guide may apply to a range of publications produced by a single company. Some house guides use different manuals for different parts of a publication. For example, one publisher uses CMS for the essays in book on a scientific topic, and the AP guide for the notes section, which uses lots of numbers.

Sub­-house style sheet: This type of style sheet applies to a single series of books or magazines, or even to a single book. It generally identifies a style manual as the primary source and then specifies variations. At times it is a single, alphabetical list, with word spellings and usage categories intermingled. Other times it may have various sections explaining topics such as book structure, treatment of headers/page numbers, in­text reference rules, numbers/numerals, and the like.

CMS gives editors some leeway in how they want to hyphenate compound words; a style sheet may refer to a specific dictionary for guidance. The creation of a style guide gives editors some room for creativity as to specific matters, although clients often have a preference one way or another.

Kris talked about what to do if an author deviates from a publisher's style sheet. First, try to convince the author that the style sheet is important because it keeps books consistent and recognizable. If that's unsuccessful, see if the publisher feels strongly about the issue. Giving authors leeway on small issues they feel strongly about may lead to more cooperation from them on other issues.

Producing Style Sheets

The discussion turned to how to create style sheets. Kris said she usually begins by jotting down points for a style sheet on lined paper. Then about a quarter of the way into the project she transfers the information to electronic form. She uses two windows and adds to the style sheet as the edit proceeds.

Another process is to use a house style guide and to check off items relevant to your project as you go. Later, you can transfer the relevant items to create a project style sheet. Some editors like to use a grid format, with a letter of the alphabet for each square.

You can also take a style sheet used for another client and adapt it to the new project, deleting and adding items as appropriate. Ann has a generic style sheet that she adapts to each project. Kris noted that a style guide may grow from individual project style sheets.

Sample style sheets are available in several reference guides, including The Copyeditor's Handbook (Amy Einsohn); CMS (pp. 73­74); and McGraw­-Hill's Proofreading Handbook. Ann Gosch also provided a generic sample style sheet. A style sheet may be a work in progress, evolving through collaboration between editors.

Additional Style Guides

During the Q & A session, participants mentioned several additional style references:

  • Words into Type, now out of print, is a good guide to rules for foreign languages and to English usage. It may be available secondhand from sources such as www.abebooks.com, www.powells.com, and secondhand bookstores.

  • The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (18th ed. pub. 2005) is a citation and format guide used for many law-­related publications. It includes good information about courts and other government bodies in the United States and foreign jurisdictions.

  • The American Medical Association also provides a guide for medical issues, and CSE applies to science issues.

In closing, it was noted that producing a style guide can be a team-­building exercise for a group of editors working on a large project.

Meeting organizer and facilitator: Beth Chapple

Notetaker: Sharon C. Rutberg

Location: Hugo House