What is a Style Guide?

For any organization, the development of one’s brand is key to establishing a presence in the market. Through our brand, we articulate a specific "voice" and those desirable values that can connect us with a particular audience. Visual branding, such as a logo, used on everything from marketing campaigns and merchandising to professional stationery, creates a standard by which everyone may identify and make connections. When did you last strike up a conversation with s with someone because you recognized the logo on their shirt?

Beyond logo design, branding can also extend to the preferred typefaces, colors, and documents an organization uses. As the brand of an individual or organization grows, it becomes increasingly important to develop a professional style guide. These guides serve as a comprehensive manual for providing clear instructions on every brand element, ensuring everyone represents the organization consistently. Coca-Cola, for example, has trademark rights on a specific red called, appropriately enough, "Coke Red." For example, the style guide for the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay includes fonts, colors, and the desired placement of these elements on various professional documents. As in this example, many style guides also include guidance on preferred spellings, grammatical usage, formatting, and citation styles.

Academic Style Guides

You have probably worked with style guides already when assigned essays for school. Depending on the class, you were likely using one of a handful of academic style guides commonly used to lay out the conventions for formatting your essay or report, citing sources, and ensuring the consistency in your writing. Much like branding, style guides enhance your credibility and show that you recognize and appreciate the genre conventions of that filed of study. Here are some summaries of the more popular academic styles.

APA Style (American Psychological Association)

APA is widely used in the social sciences and emphasizes clarity, objectivity, and the ethical presentation of data. Reports, white papers, and analytical documents are typically written using APA style as it provides clearly defined rules for using charts and figures. One benefit of APA is that the style may be adapted to meet the needs of an organization or publication.

MLA Style (Modern Language Association)

Majors in the humanities rely on MLA style, which focuses on citing sources in an clear, concise format. Whereas APA is used more for genres that use quantitative data, MLA is built for citing qualitative data. Case studies, cultural and audience analyses are often written in MLA formatting.

Chicago Style (University of Chicago Press)

Although coming from a major academic press, Chicago and its offshoots have become more popular in commurcial use due to its versatility. Footnotes are the hallmark of Chicago style, a useful technique when creating visual forms of information like presentation slides and infographics.

AP Style (Associated Press)

Used in journalism and corporate communications, AP Style is unique in that it rarely uses formal citations but instead integrates sources into the writing itself. On the other hand, AP carries an extensive list of recommendations for abbreviations, proper nouns, dates, and numbers. AP focsues on concision and avoiding jargon so it especially useful in journalism as well as corporate communications.

IEEE Style (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)

Like MLA and APA, IEEE is designed to work especially well in a specific field of study. Used primarily for technical documents, the precision and structure of IEEE is most often used in technology sectors, information systems, project managements, and data analytics.

Academic style guides are more than just rules for formatting; they are tools for effective communication. As business writing students, mastering these guides prepares you to create professional documents that meet the standards of academia as well as industry. Understanding when and how to use different guides will help you adapt to the diverse demands of business and technical communication.

In my own professional experience, I’ve found that most organizations have incorporated one or more of the above styles into their own branding. Outside of higher education, in other words, I have rarely been asked to use MLA or APA. Instead, I have had to learn a proprietary, "in-house" style guide or create one for clients.

So what goes into an in-house or personal style guide? Many of the same components of the academic styles you’ve already worked with!

Personal Style Guides

A personal style guide is a set of guidelines that you create for yourself to help you write consistently and effectively. It can be tailored to your individual writing style, preferences, and needs. Here are some important questions to help you consider your personal writing style:

• Tone and style: Consider the tone and style that you want to use in your writing. Do you prefer a formal or informal tone? Should your writing be conversational or more technical? Include guidelines on the type of language and vocabulary you prefer to use in your writing.
• Formatting: Consistency in formatting can help your writing look more polished and professional. Consider guidelines for headings, font sizes and types, paragraph spacing, and other elements of formatting.
• Terminology and spelling: If you frequently use technical terms or jargon in your writing, it may be helpful to create a list of preferred terms and spellings. This can help you ensure consistency and accuracy in your writing.
• References and citations: If you frequently use references or citations in your writing, it may be helpful to develop guidelines for how to cite sources, what types of sources to use, and how to format references and citations.
• Writing process: Consider developing guidelines for your writing process, including how to brainstorm ideas, organize your thoughts, and revise your writing.
• Voice and audience: Consider the voice and audience for your writing. Should your writing be more formal or conversational? Who is your target audience, and how can you tailor your writing to their needs and expectations?

Overall, a personal style guide is a tool for helping you write consistently and effectively. It should reflect your individual writing style and preferences, and include guidelines for tone and style, formatting, grammar and punctuation, terminology and spelling, references and citations, writing process, and voice and audience. By following your personal style guide, you can produce high-quality writing that meets your communication goals and reflects your unique voice and perspective.

Setting up Your Style Guide

Before setting up your style guide, be sure to do the following:

1. Choose a specific context or audience for your style guide. For example, you might create a style guide for writing technical documentation, business communication, academic writing, or social media content.
2. Conduct research on existing style guides for your chosen context or audience. You can use the internet, books, or other resources to find examples of style guides that are relevant to your project.
3. Review the guidelines and best practices in the existing style guides and take notes on what you find useful, effective, and relevant.
4. Develop a set of guidelines and best practices for your own style guide, using the information and insights you gained from your research. Consider issues such as tone, language, formatting, style, and referencing.
5. Write your style guide, making sure to clearly define and explain each guideline and best practice. Use clear and concise language, and provide examples and illustrations wherever possible.
6. Review and edit your style guide to ensure that it is consistent, coherent, and effective. Make any necessary changes or revisions based on feedback from peers or instructors.

Writing the Introduction

Some questions to address in your style guide introduction include:

• What context or audience did you choose for your style guide, and why? What were some of the key considerations or challenges specific to this context or audience?
• What guidelines and best practices did you include in your style guide, and why? What did you find useful or effective about the guidelines and best practices in existing style guides, and how did you adapt them for your own project?
• How did you ensure consistency and coherence in your style guide? What tools or strategies did you use to achieve this?
• What feedback did you receive on your style guide, and how did you incorporate this feedback into your final product? What changes or revisions did you make, and why?
• If you were to create another style guide in the future, what lessons would you take from this project? What would you do differently, and what would you keep the same?

Other Components to Include

Your style guide should be a reflection of you, your personality, and professional experiences and aspirations. What it should demonstrate is an attention to the purpose and audience and how those concepts are expressed through small design choices.