Style guide
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

A style guide is a work aiming to set out rules for writers. In such works, style can have two meanings:

• Publication conventions for markup style, such as italicization of book and movie titles, expression of dates and numbers, or formats for footnotes.
• Literary considerations of prose style, such as best usage, common grammatical errors, rules or suggestions for the most forceful expression of ideas.

Some style guides for the English language

Academic

• APA style: academic style for the social sciences by the American Psychological Association
• The MLA style manual: academic style for the arts by the Modern Language Association of America
• The Chicago Manual of Style: mostly publishing conventions
• Words into Type: publishing conventions, less scholarly, more accessible than the Chicago Manual
• Turabian: academic style based on the Chicago Manual

Journalism

• Associated Press Stylebook: the foremost guide to newspaper style in the US
• BBC News Style Guide: from the British Broadcasting Corporation
• The Guardian Style Guide: from The Guardian (UK)
• The Times Style and Usage Guide: from The Times (UK)

General

• The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr and E. B. White: mostly literary style, American
• Fowler's Modern English Usage: more a grammar guide than a style guide, British, later editions not written by Henry W. Fowler
• Oxford Style Manual: The 2003 work combines The Oxford Guide to Style and The Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors with the latter emphasizing common problems.
• Politics and the English Language by George Orwell
• Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers: mostly literary style, British slant

Wikipedia

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style: the style guide¹ for this encyclopedia, Wikipedia

Books

• Usage and Abusage by Eric Partridge
• The King's English by Kingsley Amis
• Troublesome Words by Bill Bryson
• Janice R. Walker and Todd Taylor The Columbia Guide to Online Style; Columbia University Press ISBN 0231107897 (paperback, 1998) and ISBN 0231107889 (hardback, 1998)
• The Chicago Manual of Style; University of Chicago Press; ISBN 0-226-10403-6 (15th edition, hardcover, 2003). Margaret D. F. Mahan wrote the preface, but is not credited as editor.
• H.W. Fowler and Robert Burchfield (editor); The New Fowler's Modern English Usage; Clarendon Press; ISBN 0198602634 (revised 3rd edition, hardcover, 2000)

See also

• English writing style

External links

• The Guardian's style guide
• The Economist's style guide
• The University of Memphis list of Style Manuals & Guides
• Yale Style Manual (for web pages)

Footnote

¹Wikipedia has several recommendations as to writing style, such as:

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style
• Wikipedia:Cite your sources
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies)
• Wikipedia:News style

The original article can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Style_guide.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.