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Stylin’ to Up Your Game
Writing style guides make life easier for writers
“On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.” Thomas Jefferson
Though Thomas Jefferson had a knack for expressing ideas applicable over many circumstances, he probably was not thinking of style guides for writers when he came up with this quote. But it suits. By following his suggestions, writers burnish their work till it gleams. Readers are less likely to be confused or slowed down as they move through a piece, whether it’s an academic paper, a non-profit grant application, a short story, or a blog post.
The first step to swimming with the current is to understand what a writing style guide is. A writing style guide is a set of standards for the writing and design of a document. A style guide covers the meat and bones of writing. Writers who use a style guide will be less likely to have variations in spelling, punctuation, and format within one work. Typical areas covered by a guide include spelling choices, punctuation practices, citation formats, and capitalization. There are writing styles like Hemingway’s paucity of words and Faulkner’s abundance of them, but a style guide is not about those characteristics. Following a style guide requires more diligence and accuracy than talent. Writing style guides help a writer decide if “3am” would be a better…
