How to create a white paper style guide, in 60 minutes or less
by Gordon Graham, That White Paper Guy
A good style guide can avoid inconsistencies, settle arguments, and save time.
If your company or client has a style guide, follow it.
But if not, you don't need to sink days into developing one.
Here are two quick methods I learned from a seasoned editor who worked for many book publishing houses.
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She had the very same issue as any contract white paper writer: How do you keep house styles straight when you're working for several different clients? |
Method #1: Style on the fly
Here's how to create a style guide as you work on drafting or revising a white paper.
Start a second file and record any term you could handle in more than one way, such as "email" or "e-mail." Decide which way you prefer, then do a search & replace to make every occurrence in your document consistent.
At the end of your work session, you will have a start on a style guide for your company or client, and a white paper that follows it.
Hint: For a smaller company, this approach may give you all that you ever need.
Method #2: Style in 60 minutes
Here's a way to create a more formal style guide in about an hour.
1. Gather a good set of input documents from your company or client, including press releases, marketing materials, manuals, and any previous white papers.
2. Open a file and enter something like:
Style Guide for [Company] as of [Date].
3. Start scanning through the first document for words you could handle in more than one way, such as "smart phone" or "smartphone." Type in all the alternatives.
Hint: If you're looking at PDFs on screen, search for each alternative and note how often it occurs.
4. Then scan for the next term. On the first few pages, you'll find lots. This will taper off as you capture all the main terms.
Hint: To use the whole web for research, go to www.googlefight.com and type in, for example, "smart phone" and "smartphone." You'll see how many times each occurs on the web.
5. Continue eyeballing, and enter each new term in alphabetical order. You may want to stop after you've scanned through a good sampling or used up 50 minutes.
6. Then take 10 minutes to run through your list, deciding how to handle each term.
7. If you need to call a meeting, use your file as the agenda.
Hint: Try to be consistent on related terms, such as "e-mail" and "e-commerce" and "e-" everything else.
What to cover in a style guide
A style guide isn't just about spelling.
You can also include how to format the elements of a page: various levels of headings, callouts, tables, figure titles, headers and footers, table of contents, footnotes, and so on.
Many companies have guidelines on how to use logos and product names. You can attach templates for various types of documents, if any exist. And you can point to external references.
Although many writers are self-admitted "word nerds" we need to keep the eye on the ball: helping our company or client generate leads and cement sales. Yes, style guides are important... but not as important as that.
No style guide adds anything to the bottom line, compared to a truly effective white paper.
Some existing style guides to check out
The Associated Press Style Book
www.APstylebook.com
This book is arranged alphabetically for quick reference by busy reporters and editors. Opening my copy at random, I find entries for dot-com, double-click, Down syndrome and Drambuie: These all words I would wonder how to spell or hyphenate.
The Elements of Style by Strunk and White
www.bartleby.com/141/
Good taste is timeless, as this slim volume demonstrates; it was first published in 1918. Rules like "omit needless words" and "use definite, specific, concrete language" should be the prime directives for any writer.
The Chicago Manual of Style
www.chicagomanualofstyle.org
This is the bible of many publishing houses, now online as a service, along with other publishing-related topics.
For instance, you can find a detailed discussion of citation styles with examples here:
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html
Wired Style: Principles of English Usage
in the Digital Age
Although missing terms coined since 1999, this is a great glossary with short but informative entries on everything from "Abilene Project" to "zine." It also provides 10 principles of style including my favorite, "Transcend the technical."
Unfortunatey, the companion website is now offline. But you can still pick up a used copy through
Amazon or other sources.
The Yahoo! Style Guide
http://styleguide.yahoo.com/
As of July 2011, I've just picked up this intriguing title, and I'll be posting my comments about it soon.
It's billed as "the ultimate sourcebook for writing, editing, and creating content for the digital world." Who wouldn't want that?
Written by Gordon Graham, this article appeared in the April 2011 edition of the WhitePaperSource Newsletter.
