Writing Style Guides 101: What They Are and Why You Need One

I’ve been writing and editing professionally since 2010. One of the most important tools of my trade is a writing style guide.

If you’re not a writer or editor, you might be familiar with the term “style guide” or “style manual” from your university days. You may remember using the American Psychological Association (APA) citation style or the Modern Language Association (MLA) citation style. However, a style guide is more than that. A writing style guide is a wide range of rules as well as guidelines to write and edit for a particular organization.

Style guides are crucial because they help you create a consistent experience for all your content and by extension allow you to define your brand’s values.

The Purpose of Style Guides

What do I mean by, “a writing style guide is a wide range of rules as well as guidelines to write and edit for a particular organization?”

Let's start off by talking about why you need rules to write beyond good grammar and correct spelling. I’m going to address that question by asking you to think of your favorite brands. Let’s say you see a print ad or a static digital ad for your favorite brand. How do you know it’s for your favorite brand?

You might say, “Well, there’s a picture of the product.” Or maybe you’ll tell me there’s a logo in the corner. What about the tag line, though? When you see a certain phrase, you know that it’s for a particular brand because it’s written in a specific style.

Or maybe you’re not reading a tag line. Perhaps you’ve come across a thought leadership article by a subject matter expert. You know that person works for a specific brand because of the way they talk about the subject at hand—they’re echoing the brand’s stance on the issue.

That’s not an accident. Whoever writes for that brand has to follow a set of rules and guidelines to make the tag lines and content sound recognizable.

Imagine that you saw an ad from your favorite brand that didn’t feature that recognizable tag line, or it didn’t follow the brand’s usual tone. It might be something as small as different comma usage within the same paragraph. You’d be confused. Maybe you’d start doubting the brand. A style guide helps writers and editors avoid that confusion and maintain that recognizable tone.  

Your Written Style Is How You Communicate with the World

Every brand has rules for how it communicates with the world, and how it communicates about itself. These rules can be shaped by a variety of factors, including where the organization is located, the industry in which it operates, and how it wants to talk about itself to differentiate itself from the competition.

I’ll illustrate with a fictitious example. For the purposes of this exercise, I’ll talk about The Next Chapter, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people released from prison reintegrate into society.

The Next Chapter has some rules for how it communicates with the world. When the organization talks about the people that it helps, it uses the word “clients.” You’ll never see any slang for prison (such as “clink” or “slammer”) in any of The Next Chapter’s content—the organization wants to maintain a respectful tone.

Any time the organization publishes content, whether it’s a blog post or the annual report, it cites research. However, the research isn’t from just anywhere. The Next Chapter will only cite research from reputable sources such as academics, government agencies, or other non-profit organizations.

Those three things (among others--this isn't an exhaustive list) allow The Next Chapter to be instantly recognizable to its audience. Whenever people read content from that non-profit, they know what they can expect.

Your Style Guide: The Source of Your Communication Rules

Your rules about how you communicate with the world and about yourself allow your audience to recognize you in a crowded marketplace. That’s why you need a style guide. Think of it as the source of your rules for how you communicate with the world and about yourself.

Anyone who writes or edits for you will immediately understand how to write about your brand after reading your style guide. As a result, they’ll create content that fits with your brand. When people read your content, they’ll know it’s coming from you. Moreover, they’ll know what your brand stands for (and in contrast, what it doesn’t stand for).

You don’t want people to interact with your brand and come away feeling confused. And you definitely don't want your audience to wonder what exactly you stand for. By creating a style guide, you’re generating a single source of truth about your brand’s communication rules.

While a style guide is a good first start, you should be following certain best practices. Stay tuned—I’ll discuss them in my next blog post.