Five super style guides for writers, editors and proofreaders
12 October 2009 | Articles | 3 Comments
In print and on screen, a good style guide will help you write consistent copy
The content-based style guide is clearly the foundation stone on which the multi-billion-pound structure of the creative and media industries is built. Without it the entire sector would implode into chaos, disorder, and inconsistent use of the hyphen.
Thankfully, our quality team are always on hand to make sure that the written work we produce for clients is tip-top in print and totally tested online. They’ve put together this list of five superb style guides.
The BBC
You wouldn’t think it from the way politicians are queuing up to stick the boot into the BBC, but the Corporation has been the most respected news organisation in the world since before most of them were born.
Its output is consumed daily by hundreds of millions of people worldwide, of widely varying classes, nationalities and cultures. So its style guide isn’t just about the difference between ‘percent’ and ‘percentage points’ – it’s necessarily a masterclass in pitching copy so that it’s accessible to readers from this staggering range of backgrounds.
Less comprehensive than the Guardian’s A–Z of style issues (see below), it’s more of a general overview, with the issues collected into categories such as ‘Names & titles’ and ‘Abbreviations & acronyms’.
It’s especially useful on commonly confused words – this is where to check the differences between ‘discrete’ and ‘discreet’, ‘uninterested’ and ‘disinterested’ – and as nicely written as you’d hope for. If that’s not enough, it’s also set in Gill Sans. Lovely.
Download or view the BBC style guide in PDF format
The Guardian
Language is a living, evolving organism, and when style changes, it often changes for a clear social or cultural reason. When the Guardian’s style guide tells its writers not to cap up job titles, this isn’t just because it looks better. It’s because we live in an age that questions authority.
And what kind of egalitarian society gives initial caps to a Chief Operating Officer or Managing Director while denying them to a Bar Person or a Cleaner?
The Guardian’s liberal values (‘political correctness’, of course, being a horrible cliché which any good style guide will robustly forbid) very usefully compel its writers to avoid language that is unfair, disrespectful or prejudiced. For this reason its style guide is the place to go when you want to make sure a piece of phrasing observes the necessary cultural sensitivities of our time.
The dry, withering wit of its authors also means the Guardian’s guide – published as a book as well as online – can be an entertaining read in its own right.
A lengthy, detailed paragraph about split infinitives, genitive case and other Latin-based grammatical ‘rules’ is followed by the advice: “As our publications are written in English, rather than Latin, do not worry about any of this even slightly.”
View The Guardian’s style guide online
The Times
The Times might be diving downmarket quicker than you can say Jeremy Clarkson, but its former status as a bulwark of the British establishment makes it a useful stylistic countercheck against the excesses of modernity.
True, you may have little everyday use for the special sections dedicated by the Times style guide to such institutions as the armed forces, courts, and church. There are moments, however, when the ultra-modern dash of the Guardian becomes a stumble, and we need to reach back for the old certainties.
After all, there are very good reasons for retaining initial caps on a phrase like ‘the Home Office’, unless you want the UK’s criminal justice portfolio landing on the computer desk in your spare bedroom.
View The Times style_guide online
Training and Development Agency for Schools
The Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) is the body responsible for training teachers, school leaders and classroom assistants in the UK. The TDA style guide is tremendously detailed on the sometimes impenetrable array of acronyms and jargon that surround education.
The TDA also happens to publish its style guide online – a remarkably considerate gesture which is sure to be useful to all writers, editors and proofreaders whose work sometimes concerns education, including here at The Workshop.
View the TDA’s style guide online
Butcher’s Copy-Editing
Finally, step back from the internet for a moment and pay respect to your elders and betters. Now honorary president of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders, Judith Butcher has half a century of experience to her name, and the legendary guidebook she first published in 1975 has influenced generations of UK English style.
Even as the creative and media industries continue to adapt to the digital age, this volume should lie within easy reach of every desk.
1: Iain Broome on 15 October 2009
All good suggestions. I also use the Oxford Manual of Style, as do many others, of course. I actually think the style guide is a much underused resource these days. With the blogging culture comes a tendency to publish without, well, without any consideration for consistency at all.
2: Jo Allen on 3 December 2009
Good list – I can’t work without my library of guides. Butcher of course, and the Times guide gets used almost daily but always cross-ref’d to the Oxford. Company websites are useful as are DirGov, BBC and HMRC sites. But I also produce a client-specific guide for each client to cover all the in-house stuff like capitals for job titles and so on.
3: The Workshop on 4 December 2009
@Jo You’re absolutely right about having a client-specific guide to cover any in-house quirks or standards. This is something we do on every project, wherever possible.