Many students I know who regularly write papers for class have never heard of a style guide. It’s the same way for many bloggers I’ve met. The question I always get is, “What is it for?”
In a nutshell, a style guide is all about fostering consistency. How should acronyms be written, with periods or without? Should we add the full unabbreviated name in parentheses every time or leave it as is? Should we write e-mail or email? The answer to these questions are usually found in whatever style guide you are using.
If you are writing for a trade magazine, chances are you’ll either be following one of the two best-known styles (Associated Press or Chicago Manual of Style) or a hybrid of both (designed with internal organizational preferences in mind). Style guides are crucial if you want your publication to be consistent in its usage of various aspects of the English language.
On the web, many smaller websites choose to go along without using any such guidelines, allowing the writers to produce text based on their own personal styles. While that could work, you will more likely end up with a website that can confuse readers.
If you use an English composition software as a writing tool, you should know that many of them integrate style guides into the things they check for. You can select AP, for instance, and have the software check for conformity to those particular guidelines. Of course, if your organization follows its own stylebook, you may have to input many of the rules manually into the application.
Even if you aren’t required to write using any particular style guide, it does help to follow one. After all, would you rather have to do your own research on whether it’s better to use “AM or a.m” to refer to a morning time or to have the guideline tell you what’s acceptable? The advantage is, if a professor cites you for any of the usage, you can refer them to the professional guideline you followed and make them eat their own vile.
