#23791
Do-It-Yourself Style Guides for All Occasions 
A style guide is a formal set of editorial decisions for a specific set of documents. It can serve many functions, and can apply to many kinds of 'documents'. Whenever you have a number of similar documents to create or edit, a style guide can save time and energy (thus reducing costs), and improve the final product. The contents and structure of your guide can be form-fitted to meet your needs. If you start small and follow these suggestions, you can easily generate a style guide that will be welcomed and used.
Magyar, Miki D. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Style Guides
#14753
Documentation through the Discovery Process
Kloss describes a process of composing documentation that requires the writer's involvement at every phase of product development.
Kloss, Marilyn B. Intercom (2002). Articles>Documentation>Style Guides
#10807
How to be politically correct without mangling the English language. The goal is that the reader should not notice the writing.
Weber, Jean Hollis. Technical Editors Eyrie (1998). Articles>Writing>Style Guides>Gender
#30486
Editing the Baldridge Quality Award Application
Editing the Baldrige award application requires unique plans for the writing, editing, reviewing, and publishing cycle. The editor’s role includes training nonwriters to write, establishing style guidelines, setting reasonable schedules, and editing each draft.
Hamilton, Delores I. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Business Communication>Style Guides
#14699
Blank discusses the benefits of using consistent styles in documentation.
Blank, William. Intercom (2001). Articles>Documentation>Style Guides
#20464
Like teenagers and salespeople, apostrophes are frequently there when they're not wanted, and not to be seen when they're needed.
#23435
A discussion about INTECOM's project for researching and establishing English-language documentation guidelines.
Fuchs, Amo and Ronald S. Blicq. TC-FORUM (2000). Articles>Documentation>Style Guides
#22409
Many grammar reference works take what is a relatively simple subject and, with unnecessary expansion and elaboration, turn it into an impenetrably dull experience for the reader. In this article, I'll take a brief look at three books that offer an easy and readable alternative.
GaryConroy.com (1992). Articles>Reviews>Style Guides
#25796
So maybe you do know how to add memory to your computer or program your cell phone, but do you know where to put a comma in a sentence? If you have a sentence followed by a list, do you use a semicolon or a colon? Does the period go inside or outside of quotation marks? How do you keep up with changing rules of grammar and punctuation when you can't remember where to put the apostrophe? People often fear punctuation because the rules have changed and they continue to do so.
Straus, Jane. Grammarbook.com (2004). Articles>Style Guides>Grammar
#25785
Five FAQs About Business Writing
A few style guide tips for novice business writers.
ULiveandLearn.com (2005). Articles>Writing>Style Guides>Business Communication
#18924
Frequently Asked Questions About English
Asterisks.com answers some frequently asked questions about English usage.
Asterisks.com (1999). Articles>Writing>Style Guides
#20472
One of the most significant changes taking place in English is the rejection of the way that 'man' was assumed to include 'woman'. Most of us want our writing to be friendly and inclusive. How can we avoid using 'man', 'he', and 'his'?
#13363
Gender-Neutral Technical Writing
Gender-neutral writing uses language that does not stereotype either sex nor appear to be referring to only one sex when that is not the writer's intention. In this article, you'll see why gender-neutral writing is important for technical writers to use, what gender-neutral writing is not, and how you can use gender-neutral writing in the documents you develop.
Weber, Jean Hollis. TECHWR-L (2002). Articles>Writing>Style Guides>Gender
#20075
Getting Your Style Guide Written!
This paper describes how to approach the project of writing a stand-alone Style Guide that provides technical writers and other employees with a reference for documentation procedures and policies. A Style Guide project is often placed aside while other priority projects forge ahead. This occurs for several reasons, the most common being that writing a Style Guide is a monumental task! This paper provides you with the skeleton to manage a Style Guide writing project and deliver the product on time
Taylor-Collins, Pamela. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Style Guides>Editing
#19260
A Global Style Guide: Working Together Around the World
As a result of acquisitions and mergers, companies can find themselves working together worldwide and sharing documentation to distribute in different markets. The original source documentation will probably need to be adapted by some of the companies in the distribution channel to accommodate different languages, branding and content in order to meet the requirements of these different markets. This sharing and reuse of documentation between companies worldwide is easier when all the companies in the distribution channel share a common style guide.
O'Neill, Jennifer. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>Style Guides>International
#13761
Back in 1990, Leonard and Gilsdorf presented 45 instances of questionable usage, in full-paragraph contexts, to both academics and working business executives. These usage elements included sentence fragments, assorted punctuation problems, pronoun–antecedent (dis)agreement, and various examples of questionable word choice. Their intent was to assess the “botheration level” of each usage “error”; their conclusions were that 1) academics are (nearly) always bothered by usage “errors” more than executives and 2) usage elements that bothered survey respondents the least were evolving over time into acceptable English usage. Just over ten years later, these same researchers have followed up on their original study and have drawn similar conclusions from the more recent data.
Manning, Alan D. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication (2002). Articles>Language>Style Guides
#13719
Grammar, Punctuation, Spelling
The Web abounds with sites teaching grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Not surprisingly, most of these sites are provided by educational institutions, teachers, or business-writing consultants, presumably to make up for the lack of grammar teaching in so many school systems for the past several decades. Some are tutorials (masquerading as style guides) for technical communicators. Here are a few sites that I have found useful or that other people have recommended to me.
Weber, Jean Hollis. Technical Editors Eyrie (2002). Articles>Style Guides>Writing
#11744
Guidance on Style Guides: Lessons Learned
This article highlights some of the lessons that I’ve learned about the process of creating style guides and implementing processes for ensuring that a product is consistent in a number of dimensions. I discuss the purposes and benefits of a style guide, a process for creating a style guide, the many types of consistency, reasons why style guides fail, methods for ensuring consistency, and some references that discuss these issues in more detail.
Wilson, Chauncey E. Usability Interface. Articles>Style Guides
#24034
Writing a good description is fun, but it's delicate work. We recognize vivid writing when we come across it, and we know the bad stuff, too -- it makes us squirm instinctively. Here are some types of descriptions the world can do without.
Dahl, Elisabeth. Editorial Eye, The (1996). Articles>Style Guides>Diction
#24062
Handling Internet Addresses in Text
How to present complete and intelligible Internet addresses and where to break long strings of letters, digits, punctuation, and symbols on the page.
Ivey, Keith C. Editorial Eye, The (1996). Articles>Style Guides
#27272
Intelligent Terminology Management
Using multiple terms to refer to the same concepts can be a major cause of confusion. Ray explains how to implement a process to consolidate the terminology used by your organization.
Ray, Rebecca. Intercom (2006). Articles>Writing>Style Guides>Glossary
#26152
Keep Spelling Consistent With a Style Sheet
Consistent spelling and punctuation increases your website's credibility. Often it's your decision: 'inhouse' or 'in-house', for instance? Either one is correct, but you must use the same punctuation throughout.
McAlpine, Rachel. Quality Web Content (2004). Articles>Writing>Style Guides
#23960
Localization Guidelines for Your User Interface
When delivering your product in foreign languages, it is important to consider how the user interface will appear to users around the world. While there are no hard-fast rules, the following suggestions provide some guidance in facilitating localization in regard to your user interface.
Microsoft (2001). Articles>Style Guides>User Interface>Localization
#20797
Look at Common Style Differences in Choosing Manuals
Style manuals often differ on important points, and one way to choose a manual is to compare them on some of those points.
#20029
Loose Ends: Standards and Styles
Several readers have sent me e-mail comments and questions recently that might be of interest to others. (Even Eye readers who don't spend much time on the Web tell us they're interested in picking up this kind of information.)
Ivey, Keith C. Editorial Eye, The (2003). Articles>Style Guides>Editing
