A Writer’s Guide to Style Guides

While you’re busy building the world of your novel or researching all the facts for your self-help book, you may not think much about where you place your commas, how you capitalize your chapter titles, or whether your numbers should be spelled out or written as numerals.

Maybe you assume you don’t need to think about the technical side of writing—after all, that’s what editors are for, right? But understanding writing style and knowing which style guide you’re using (or should be using) can go a long way toward making your writing as clean and professional as possible.

With that in mind, let’s go over the basics of style guides, including why you should know about them, what the most common guides are, and which one is right for you.

What is a style guide?

A style guide is a universal set of standards for writing and formatting. In other words, it lays out guidelines for the technical elements of writing, such as

• punctuation (e.g., whether or not to use the Oxford comma),
• capitalization (e.g., which letters in a title should be uppercase),
• spelling (e.g., whether certain words should be hyphenated),
• number formatting (e.g., whether to write “19th century” or “nineteenth century”),
• citations (e.g., how sources should be referenced in-text),

and so on.

It’s worth noting that style guides are different from style sheets (sometimes called “house style”). A style sheet is a short guide, typically a few pages long at most, that lays out style preferences for a specific manuscript or publication, especially those that deviate from a broader style guide.

For example, an author may follow most of the guidelines in The Chicago Manual of Style but choose not to use the Oxford comma. In this case, a style sheet would clarify to her editors that they should not add serial commas to the manuscript during the editing phase (no matter how badly they want to, because Oxford commas rule).

Why do writers and editors use style guides?

Everyone has their own personal style preferences (whether they realize it or not), so style guides are important for keeping a manuscript technically consistent throughout the many stages of writing and editing. This is useful for multiple reasons:

1. The writer can focus on the content of their work without getting too hung up on the rules of punctuation and formatting.
2. Editors don’t need to keep querying the writer about every technical detail, which helps cut down on editing time.
3. The final published work looks much more professional and is easier for readers to enjoy.

Win-win-win!

What are the different style guides?

There are multiple different style guides that writers and editors can follow, varying widely in scope and use. Many guides are used in niche contexts and publications, but a few are used broadly enough to be considered industry standards.

While there are too many to cover in one blog post, these are the most widely used style guides for writing in US English:

• The Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS)
• American Psychological Association (APA)
• Modern Language Association (MLA)
• The Associated Press Stylebook (AP style)

What are the differences between style guides?

Here’s a quick overview of some of the differences between the major style guides:

The Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS)

The Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS) is the most commonly used style guide for book manuscripts (both fiction and nonfiction) and US print publishing at large. Whenever you read a novel, a memoir, a self-help book, or any other long-form work of prose published in the US, you’re usually seeing the writing conventions laid out in this guide.

American Psychological Association (APA)

APA style is based on the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association and is widely used in academic writing, particularly in the health and natural sciences. This is the style guide usually followed for scientific papers, essays for school, and textbooks in various fields of academia.

Modern Language Association (MLA)

MLA style follows the MLA Handbook published by the Modern Language Association and is typically used in academic writing related to the arts and humanities. You would most commonly see this style in published works relating to language, such as English studies or literary criticism.

The Associated Press Stylebook (AP style)

AP style is based on The Associated Press Stylebook and is the industry standard for journalism and business writing. This style guide differs the most from the other three and is what you would use to write news articles and marketing copy.

Oh no, I don’t have a consistent style! Should I have learned all of this before I started writing my book?

No need to panic! While knowing about the different style guides beforehand does give you an advantage going in, it’s better to start late than not at all.

If you’re an author planning to self-publish your book in the United States and you don’t currently have a consistent style, the guide most relevant to your needs will be The Chicago Manual of Style. This is almost definitely the style guide your editors will follow while working on your manuscript (we use CMoS here at Wandering Words Media), so it’s worth familiarizing yourself with these guidelines now to streamline the editing process later!

A few of the most common conventions of CMoS are listed in the table above, but if you still have questions, you can always find more answers on the official website: The Chicago Manual of Style Online.

In short, style guides don’t need to be yet another confusing and overwhelming part of the writing process (because we know authors have enough of those already). So long as you’re aware of the rules (even if you choose to break them) and can maintain a consistent style throughout your manuscript drafts, your book will be that much easier to finish—and your editors will thank you as well!