Use these tips and this template to set style standards for your organization.
An organizational style guide will assist your staff and editorial contractors in conforming to standardized usage, terminology, punctuation, and formatting when writing or editing on behalf of the organization. The result will be a unified voice and a polished image to the outside world.
Updating a guide is much easier than creating one. The best thing to do is just get started and add to your guide over time. Use the template below to begin deciding what standards it will contain.
In most cases, there are several possible specifications for a given attribute. How do you decide which to designate as the standard?
Note that the organization’s technical publications may have separate yet compatible style guides (or addenda to the main guide) to address their need for more precise syntax and punctuation.
For each attribute, give the rule(s), then one or more examples to illustrate. Be sure to address any idiosyncrasies of your industry or business.
Be careful not to use examples lifted directly from documents that cross your desk! Change enough details so that nobody feels picked on.
Differentiate what is set in stone from what may be relaxed in casual circumstances or in special cases, such as advertising copy.
Commas:
Do you use a comma before the conjunction in a serial list?
Numbers:
Which numbers do you spell out? What are the exceptions?
How do you set off thousands?
How do you treat large round number units (e.g., $7.4 million)?
Phone numbers:
How do you offset area codes and exchanges?
Do you include country codes, even with U.S./Canadian phone numbers?
Times:
Do you write AM/PM or a.m./p.m., or do you use small caps?
How do you specify noon and midnight?
How do you express continuing or inclusive times?
How do you express time zones?
Dates/Years:
In what order is date information expressed (e.g., 10 October 2007 or October 10, 2007 or 2007 October 10)?
Do you allow abbreviations for months?
How do you express continuing or inclusive dates or years?
Under what circumstances do you exclude the year?
Measurements:
Do you use U.S. or metric units or both?
Do you use the symbol for the unit or the word for it?
Titles:
How do you treat names of boards, committees, subcommittees, task forces, and departments in terms of capitalization?
How do you express an individual’s title if it comes before the name or after the name?
How do you treat honorifics (Mr./Mrs./Ms., Rev., etc.), academic titles (Dr., Prof., etc.), or other titles used in your business (Your Majesty or Your Excellency, perhaps)?
Lists of people (board members, speakers, etc.):
What attributes (e.g., name, title, company, city, state/province, and country) do you include?
Do you abbreviate or omit the state or province?
In what order should the names be listed?
Universities:
How do you express the name of a campus within a university system, such as UC–Davis?
Do you allow abbreviations and nicknames such as Cal Tech or SUNY?
Addresses:
How do you write an address in paragraph form?
How do you treat addresses outside the United States?
When do you abbreviate states?
Cities and states:
When do you use postal abbreviations?
How do you set off a state in a sentence?
Must you specify states/countries for major cities? Under what circumstances? Which cities?
Bulleted lists:
When do you use end punctuation?
Do you use and or or on the penultimate item?
Do you capitalize items?
Web addresses:
Do you always include http:// when giving a URL?
When should the address be a live link? When should it be rendered as plain text?
Nouns derived from Latin and Greek:
If your industry is in an academic or scientific field, it may be helpful to include a guide to plural derivatives:
-a becomes -ae (e.g., alumna, alumnae)
-us becomes -i (e.g., syllabus, syllabi)
-um becomes -a (e.g., symposium, symposia)
-on becomes -a (e.g., criterion, criteria)
-ma becomes -mata (e.g., stigma, stigmata)
Acronyms:
When do you use or not use the before acronyms?
Do you use periods in acronyms?
What are the common acronyms in your industry? What do they stand for?
Are there any acronyms that do not need to be spelled out upon first reference?
Are there exceptions, such as for headlines?
Usage:
What are the terms and phrasings unique to your industry or business?
What words and phrases are common in your industry though uncommon outside of it?
What are the preferred phrasings for sensitive or ambiguous terms such as U.S. vs. American, chair/chairperson/chairman/chairwoman, or terms for ethnic/racial/ancestral identities?
Define frequently confused terms such as English vs. British or Web site vs. home page.
What are the full and complete names of your major products and services, including trademark or service mark symbols?
What are acceptable second references for major products and services?
Margins:
What are the margins when using letterhead?
What are the margins for regular correspondence?
What are the circumstances under which exceptions can be made?
Fonts:
What typeface should be used in general correspondence and documents?
What font size should be used? Is there an acceptance range?
What are the exceptions, such as for faxes, forms, headlines, or subheads?
Paragraphs:
Should paragraphs be separated with a double return or with indents?
Should text be aligned left or justified?
Correspondence:
When and how should stationery be used?
Is there an electronic version of stationery and do you use it differently?
Do you use a memo version of stationery, i.e., one with black and white graphics across the top only?
Give specifications and examples of letters, memoranda, agendas, meeting minutes, position papers, and other forms of correspondence.
E-Mail:
Should e-mail be formatted differently than already stated for correspondence?
What should users’ signatures consist of?
Boilerplates:
What are the preferred options for directing a reader for more information?
How can the organization be described in 100 words or so?
How can major products and services be described in 100 words or so?
Get support for the concept from the highest ranking person who would be expected to follow the style guide. If he or she has a style pet peeve, consider including it.
When you distribute a style guide, take care to explain what it is for, why it’s important, and that it’s not meant to stifle free speech or ridicule anyone. Acknowledge that certain guidelines may differ from what people learned in school or how they prefer to write outside of work.
Redistribute the guide often enough so people remember seeing one. Between editions, post it on an intranet or other central location and update as needed.
You will probably find that many of your co-workers appreciate having such a reference for style so they can spend their energy on the substance of their words. With encouragement, they will become your allies in the quest for consistency.