How to Create a Writing Style Guide Built for the Web . Whether due to lack of clarity about the style in which you'd like to write or disjointed communication across the multitude of content creators in your organization, failure to decide upon and document accepted editorial guidelines is a recipe for inconsistent messaging. That's why at some point, most companies accept that they'll need to develop a writing style guide: a document that indicates the basic rules of writing we'll all agree to follow (like whether I should've capitalized the .
The existence of a writing style guide is what saves you from finding yourself embroiled in a debate about whether there should be spaces before and after an ellipses, whether you capitalize . The existence of a style guide means you can simply have the style guide handy as your little writing rulebook without having to sit through debates about blockquotes. In an effort to help you get started with your own style guide, this blog post will walk you through the essential elements of a brand writing style guide so you can create one for yourself. Feel free to customize the template to fit your needs. Before we begin, a note on what your writing style guide will not do ..
Title: Dictionary and Style Guide Letter Template Author: FCampbell Last modified by: Randi Created Date: 10/26/2007 2:21:00 PM Company: Lewis and Roca LLP Other titles: LAW DEPARTMENT – PURCHASING AND COMMERCIAL PROTECTION LAW. Title: Style Guide Template Word Subject: Style Guide Template Word Keywords: Download or Read Online style guide template word PDF Created Date: 10/12/2016 6:30:13 AM. A style guide, also referred to as. Creating Style Guides. Published in Design, Graphic Design, Layout & Grids, Typography & Web Fonts. Several years ago, I was working on a large, complex.
It can be tempting to create the most comprehensive style guide of all time. But when documents get incredibly long, it can become a little hard to use on a day- to- day basis.
The most common sections that people are tempted to include, but which I recommend exist in another document, are: Notes on content operations. Things like submitting content to your editorial team, requesting a slot on the editorial calendar, or revision cycles. Recommendations for creating SEO- friendly content. Nitty gritty rules around logo usage or other visual style guide elements (though we will discuss a few basics on graphics and formatting in this post).
Your editorial style guide will simply guide writers by providing a set of standards to which they must adhere when creating content for your website. It eliminates confusion, guesswork, and debates over what boils down to a matter of editorial opinion among grammar and content geeks. If you're ever unsure whether something should or should not exist in your written style guide, fall back on usage to inform your decision.
ACM: myACM: Home Special Interest Groups (SIGs) Publications. Communications of the ACM. A la Carte Subscriptions.
World Scientific has produced a style/template document in MS Word format for authors contributing to Journal of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (JBCB). The World Scientific MS Word template and the sample pdf file.
If it's too long to be usable, cut it down; if it's too short to answer the most common questions, beef it up. Now, let's break down exactly what information to include in a comprehensive editorial style guide so you can go create one for your company. What to Include in Your Writing Style Guide. Section 1: Style Manual. Style manuals are reference books that tell writers how to handle grammar, punctuation, and any special use cases. Most businesses adopt either the AP Stylebook, or the Chicago Manual of Style.
It's up to you to decide which manual you'd like your company to follow. You can purchase online subscriptions to these manuals for your employees to reference, the login for which you should also include in this section of the editorial style guide to make access simple. You might find employees are more likely to reference these tools when provided with an online subscription that contains a search function, instead of a paper book through which they have to flip to find their answers. While these style guides provide a good reference point for basic grammar rules, you'll probably want to make some exceptions to the rules therein for the sake of branding, tone, and style.
Use this section of your editorial style guide to outline those exceptions, and also to highlight some of the rules that commonly arise when writing for your company that people should commit to memory - - regardless of whether it is aligned with or against house style. For example: What do you capitalize? Do you capitalize the name of your product? Are there certain prepositions you want capitalized in your title despite your stylebook's recommendations? What do you abbreviate? How do you punctuate those abbreviations?
Feel free to continue adding to this list as more confusions arise and get resolved during the content creation process. You're creating your own style guide, so feel free to borrow different rules from different style guides. The important thing is that you use the same rules consistently throughout all the content you create. Section 2: Commonly Troublesome Words. Most companies have terminology that's specific to their industry, and not all of that terminology has a universally agreed- upon spelling. For instance, if you write a lot about digital marketing like we do here at Hub. Spot, you'll find a lot of inconsistency around the spelling and capitalization of words like these: ebook vs.
Facebook like. Retweet vs. Instead of debating how to spell, capitalize, or hyphenate these words, include a section in your style guide called .
If you're using the style guide template provided earlier in this post, you'll find that section already exists in there. If you write a lot about marketing or digital trends, I think you'll find we've gotten a pretty good head start in there for you. These questions should be answered in your style guide, and the . Can writers use the first person?
How do you feel about the use of industry jargon? Think about the words you would use to describe your content in an ideal world. Which of these adjectives do you want your content to evoke? Conversational? Educational? Academic? Funny? Controversial? Irreverent? Artistic?
Objective? Sophisticated? You might think you want your content to be all of the above, but force yourself to prioritize just a few. Explain why it's important to achieve this style and tone in your content, and provide examples of content (excerpts are fine) that are successful in doing so - - particularly if those excerpts exist on your own site already. If there are stylistic characteristics your content absolutely should not have, this is the section in which to include that information, too. Again, examples of what not to do are helpful here for the sake of comparative illustration. When deciding on style and tone, be sure to consider your target audience and buyer personas in the process.
Which style and tone would resonate best with them? This brings us to our next section .. Section 4: Personas. Buyer personas are inextricably tied to style and tone, so it's important to include this section either before or after the . Why is it so important to include personas? Because the style and tone you adopt should be informed by your target audience, i. That being said, the personas in your editorial style guide don't need to go as in- depth as the personas created by your sales and marketing teams.
If you're doing a good job with freelance writer management, you'll provide ample context to inform the content they're writing. A persona, and how that informs tone and writing style, should always be included when kicking off a new freelance writer engagement. Section 5: Graphics and Formatting. I know, I told you earlier not to get into the nitty gritty with visual guidelines. Your design team or agency should create a separate brand design style guide that addresses more nuanced visual .. Here are some common questions that may come up that will impact writers or editors: Where can writers source images, and how do they properly attribute them?
When should images align to the right, to the left, or in the center? Should text wrap around images? What are the RGB and hex codes for your text and headers? What typefaces can be used? Can writers use italics, bold, or underlining? If so, is usage limited to certain occasions, like bolding headers and hyperlinks?
Which kind of bullets should be used (square, round, or other), and how should they align with the rest of the text? How should numbered lists appear: . Outline these expectations in your editorial style guide, and refer those with more advanced needs to your brand style guide. Section 6: Approved and Unapproved Content. Great content often cites research and data from third party sources. Make your writer's job easier by providing approved industry resources from which they can draw - - and, even more importantly, resources from which they cannot draw.
Break up this section of your editorial style guide into two sections: recommended and approved industry resources, and . For example, many companies strictly prohibit any mention of politics or religion in their content, or have provisions that explain when it is acceptable to include and how to frame the discussion. Similarly, many companies work within certain legal restrictions, in which case this section of the style guide might provide instructions for receiving legal approval before publishing a piece of content. This is the section of your editorial style guide to explain the intricacies of such controversies as they relate to your brand so you can prevent reputation management catastrophes. Section 7: Sourcing. With great research comes great responsibility ..
Clear up the confusion around how to properly cite research by deciding on one methodology and documenting it in your editorial style guide. Explain how to create footnotes, references, links to external sites, or even bibliographies if they are relevant to your company. This section of your editorial style guide doesn't need to be long. Just write down the rules and provide some examples of proper citations so writers can easily attribute their sources properly.
Use Examples to Show What's Right and Wrong. Every section of your editorial style guide can benefit from real life examples of the concepts you're explaining, whether you include those examples on the same page or as an appendix at the end of the guide. For example, when talking about proper formatting, include a visual example of a well- formatted blog post with callouts that detail why the elements therein are successful. If you're discussing grammar usage, provide an incorrect example, and then mark it up to show how a writer could fix it to align with your editorial style guide.