Style Guide Template

STYLE GUIDE TEMPLATE

INTRODUCTION

This section explains what this style guide is, why we use it, and how we treat issues not included here.

What’s a style guide?

This document provides guidelines on grammar, spelling, usage, and punctuation for all written materials we produce. This document is not meant to replace grammar books or dictionaries—think of it as a cheat sheet.

Why do we have a style guide?

This quick reference guide is meant to help us save time and effort, and create clear and consistent documents that reflect our brand.

How do we treat issues not included here?

For issues not covered here, refer to…………………………………………………………………………………

TONE AND VOICE

Defining thetone and voiceof our business is important to ensure our communications are consistent and reflect our brand.

TONE

Tone is how our communications sound. We adapt our business’s tone to match our audience (clients, suppliers, the public, and so on).

The tone of our business reports is ……………………………….
The tone of our blog posts and marketing materials is ……………………………….
The tone of our ………………………………. is ……………………………….

VOICE

Thevoiceof our business stays the same no matter what we write.

Our business’s voice is ……………………………….

STYLE PREFERENCES

In general, write in theactive voiceand usepassive voiceonly when needed
Avoid very long or complicated sentences
Use a mix of short and long sentences to avoid sounding robotic or tedious
Be concise and clear
Give examples
Don’t use a thesaurus; use common words
Don’t use “they” as a unisex pronoun

✘A project manager is hired only if they have good people skills.

✔A project manager is hired only if he or she has good people skills.

✔Project managers are hired only if they have good people skills.

What to never include

✘Racist, defamatory, or sexist language

✘References to sex, alcohol, drugs, politics, religion

✘Jargon

✘Clichés

✘Slang

Others: ……………………………….

OK to use sparingly

Metaphors and other figures of speech
Special terminology
……………………………….

FORMATTING

Sentence-style (not headline-style) capitalization for headings and subheadings
Italics for book titles and movies, and for emphasis
Underline hyperlinks
Curly quotation marks (“a” or ‘a’) and apostrophes (a day’s work) or straight quotation marks ("a" or 'a') and apostrophes (a day's work)?……………………………….

PUNCTUATION

Double quotes(“a”) or single quotes (‘a’)……………………………….
Punctuation in relation to quotation marks (U.K. or U.S.)……………………………….
Oxford comma (comma before the last item in a series)?………………………………
Avoid “and/or”
Only one space between sentences

LISTS

Use a bullet list when the order of the items doesn’t matter
Use a numbered list when the items on a list are sequential
Use a colon before a vertical list only if what comes before the list is a complete sentence.

DASHESAND HYPHENS

Em dash (—) to mark an abrupt change in thought, or for emphasis or explanation
En dash (–) to separate dates and numbers (items 3–10, not items 3 – 10)
Hyphen (-) to form compound words

modern-day trend,notmodern day trend; highly skilled person,nothighly-skilled person(first word ends in “-ly”)

CONTRACTIONS

No contractions (shouldn’t, can’t,don’t)in formal documents

SYMBOLS

No copyright (©), trademark (™), or registered mark (®) symbols in text except …………………..
Ampersand (&) only in company names, tables, and figures—never in text or headings
Other symbols only if needed (@ in email addresses is OK, # for tweets is OK)

CAPITALIZATION

Capitalize proper nouns
Never capitalize a term to emphasize it (use italics for emphasis)
……………………………….

Names of companies or brands

✔ LinkedIn (✘Linkedin)

✔ iPhone(✘Iphone)

✔ eBay(✘Ebay)

……………………………….

ACRONYMS

Spell out an acronym the first time it is used in a document (or in a chapter if it’s a long document) and then use the acronym.

ABBREVIATIONS

Except in reports and white papers, avoid Latin abbreviations (etc., i.e., e.g., et al.)
Use abbreviations only in tables, images, and captions
Comma after e.g., i.e., and et al.

UNITS OF MEASUREMENT

Metric or imperial?……………………………….
Spell out units in text; use abbreviations in tables or figures

NUMBERS

Numbers one through nineare spelled out. Numbers 10 and above are expressed as figures. Exception: When starting a sentence with a number, always spell it out, unless it’s a year.

✔Ten months ago we started the project.

✔1991 was a good year for our business.

Use figures when writing percentages, ages, and measurements

✔3 per cent, ✘three per cent

✔5-year-old dog, ✘five-year-olddog

✔2 seconds, ✘two seconds

Avoid suffixes (st, nd, and th) in ordinal numerals

✔twelfth,✘12th

✔twenty-first century, ✘21st century

DECIMALS

Use a dot to separate decimals (✔9.01, ✘ 9,01)
Zero before the decimal point (✔0.05, ✘ .05)

TELEPHONE NUMBERS

Country code starts with (00 or +)……………………………….
Preferred format: ……………………………….

CURRENCY

In text……………………………….
In images and tables……………………………….

DATES

Day/month/yearor month/day/year?……………………………….
In-text reference……………………………….

TIMES

12-hour clock or 24-hour clock?……………………………….

a.m. and p.m. or AM and PM? …………………………………

GRAMMAR

PLURALS

You are free to use, modify, and distribute this document in your organization.

Written permission from the author is needed to reproduce any part

of this document or distribute it outside your organization.

A’s and B’s, but CDs, not CD’s
cul-de-sac – culs-de-sac
criterion – criteria
dos and don’ts
medium – media
whys and hows
……………………………….

You are free to use, modify, and distribute this document in your organization.

Written permission from the author is needed to reproduce any part

of this document or distribute it outside your organization.

POSSESSIVES

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Written permission from the author is needed to reproduce any part

of this document or distribute it outside your organization.

business’s purpose, but business’ story (the second word starts with an s)
Kansas’s team, Athens’s population
10 years’ experience
two weeks’ notice
others’ programs
another’s letter
……………………………….

You are free to use, modify, and distribute this document in your organization.

Written permission from the author is needed to reproduce any part

of this document or distribute it outside your organization.

SPELLING

For words not listed here, refer to ………………………….. dictionary. If it lists more than one spelling for a word, use the first entry.

TROUBLESOME WORDS

You are free to use, modify, and distribute this document in your organization.

Written permission from the author is needed to reproduce any part

of this document or distribute it outside your organization.

affect vs. effect
back up (verb) vs. backup (noun, adjective)
complementary vs. complimentary
e-book, but email
log in (verb), login (noun or adjective)
startup (noun), start up (verb)
smartphone
running a Google search, not googling or Googling
set up (verb) vs. setup (noun, adjective)
user name, not username
website, but web page
Wi-Fi, not WiFi or wifi
……………………………….

You are free to use, modify, and distribute this document in your organization.

Written permission from the author is needed to reproduce any part

of this document or distribute it outside your organization.

Foreign terms

Use diacritics (cliché, not cliche)
If the foreign word is uncommon, add the English translation in parentheses

UPDATES TO THIS DOCUMENT

This style guide is a living document. It will be revised periodically to ensure it covers the most common issues we encounter when creating documents. If you want to suggest other topics to be included here, contact ……………………………………………….. This document was last updated on ………….

You are free to use, modify, and distribute this document in your organization.

Written permission from the author is needed to reproduce any part

of this document or distribute it outside your organization.