This inspiration for this list comes from the blog entry, Cook up a Style Guide. The style guides are sorted into three categories. Let us know if about any others.

• Academy and other Style Guides
• Web Design, Web Site and Geek Style Guides
• Writing Style and Media Guides

Academic and other Style Guides

• AAA (American Anthropological Association) relies on two to create its own AAA Style Guide
• American Institute of Physics
• AMA Style Guide from University of Washington that lists the most frequently used entries. Medical professionals tend to rely on this one
• APA Style Guide is a popular style guide especially with colleges and universities
• APA Research Style Crib Sheet
• Carnegie Mellon Writer’s Style Guide
• Columbia Guide to Online Style
• Introduction to Basic Legal Citation
• MHRA (Modern Humanities Research Association)
• Ohio State University (based on Chicago Manual of Style)
• OSU Turabian Citation Guide
• University of California at Irvine
• University of Colorado at Boulder Style Guide

Web Design, Web Site and Geek Style Guides

• A List Apart
• Apple Publications Style Guide (pdf file)
• Dojo Style Guide
• IEEE Computer Society Style Guide
• IEEE Standards Style Manual
• Jargon File, the online version of The New Hacker’s Dictionary
• Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications or Microsoft Computer Dictionary
• Mozilla Coding Style Guide
• New York Public Library’s NYPL:Style Guide for web sites
• Python Style Guide
• W3C Style Guide for Online Hypertext
• Web Design Group Style Guide for Online Hypertext (Largely taken from W3C’s guide)
• Web 2.0 How-to Design Guide
• Web Style Guide for web sites
• Wikipedia Manual of Style
• Writing for Multimedia’s Terminology

Writing Style and Media Guides

• AP Style Guide
• BBC News Style Guide for radio
• Chicago Manual of Style
• Economist Style Guide
• Dictionary.com Style Guide
• GuardianUnlimited Style Guide is for writers and editors
• Guide to Grammar and Style by Jack Lynch
• Guide to Citation Style Guides
• Strunk & White’s Elements of Style

People ask whether to capitalize Internet, web, or net, and which of the following to use: e-mail vs. email, tradeshow vs. trade show, and web site vs. web site. No one likes an indefinite answer, but it’s up to you or your organization. To ensure consistency on such thorny words, most editors rely on a style guide.

If you don’t have the luxury of cooking one, there are a few excellent resources for your use. Many editors reference the AP Style Guide and Chicago Manual of Style. For citing another source, the MLA Handbook does the job as well as the aforementioned two books. Strunk & White’s Elements of Style is an oldie that continues to find new fans after over 85 years in its existence.

For geeky words, you might find a better resource in Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications or Microsoft Computer Dictionary. Here’s what the former says about E- words:

In general, avoid forming new words with ‘e-’ (for electronic) unless you know your audience will understand. Some words that may be appropriate in certain circumstances are ‘e-commerce’ and ‘e-money.’ ‘E-mail’ and ‘e-form’ are acceptable. Use lowercase and always hyphenate for clarity.

You can pull content from a few other guides and add in your own modifications to come up with what best fits your cooking style. Of course, keep readers in mind when creating the guide.

The following lists more guides and resources:

• APA Style Guide is a popular style guide especially with colleges and universities.
• Jargon File, the online version of The New Hacker’s Dictionary.
• Writing for Multimedia’s Terminology.
• BBC News Style Guide for radio.
• GuardianUnlimited Style Guide is for writers and editors.
• Web Style Guide for web sites.
• New York Public Library’s NYPL:Style Guide for web sites.
• AMA Style Guide from University of Washington that lists the most frequently used entries. Medical professionals tend to rely on this one.

The next part to tackle is physical conventions. For instance, when starting a new paragraph, do you indent or use a double hard return? What font size, face, and style will you use for titles? Will the titles be capitalized or in sentence case? This is similar to a cookbook. All the recipes are formatted the same way. Even CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a recipe since it ensures formatting consistency.

Throw all the selected style ingredients into one pan, or in this case, one document. The style guide should be organized to make it easy for your writers can find what they need.

Finally, put it where everyone can access it. It doesn’t have to be a book. It can be a one or two page document. It’s a living document that you can continuously revise. Hey, even a blogging tool or wiki can help manage it.

The hardest part? Getting everyone to follow the new guide.

When I began writing articles about the Internet, World Wide Web, and email, I was unsure of how to punctuate or capitalize such words. Checking the dictionary was fruitless because the words haven’t made it there. I sent an article draft to my sister, my second pair of eyes and a former journalist.

She responded, “You must go buy this book: WIRED STYLE.” As the good little sister I am, I did as she commanded. Immediately, I used the book and it helped me through a few entanglements.

Later, I wrote my first article on grammar and used the book and its companion Web site as the primary source. The article was well received and disliked. Most readers were grateful to have someone clarify how to take care of these techie words. But some were horrified that I used such a resource as a reference instead of the Chicago Manual of Style or other favorite resource.

Wired’s introduction indicates, “…intended to complement those guides by digging into questions that writers and editors confront daily-questions of style and substance that Chicago and AP (not to mention Strunk & White) don’t even imagine.” That’s the reason why I used it as my resource. The others didn’t address the issues I confronted while writing my article.

But should this be the stylebook for everyone? It’s definitely not the book many companies use since many argue against Wired’s choice of usage of words. For example, the infamous “email.” Book says it should be “e-mail.” Many are against typing an extra keystroke for the hyphen.

The book lists ten principles for writing well in the digital age. Five relate to prose style and five cover copy-editing style. Principle #2 encourages the writer to play with voice. Personally, I like the casual style, first-person articles. They’re easy to read and enjoy. philophe.com values Wired’s perspective, but believes they do us a disservice by not explaining that realize content and site infrastructure are separate entities.

I agree with philophe.com that a Web site’s style is determined by its company and not by Wired or anyone else. Wired states “Web” is capitalized when referencing the Web, Web sites, Web pages and so on. I use “Web” in here in meryl world and follow the style of the site for which I write.

Not only it can be used as a style guide or reference, but also as a digital glossary. It includes ASP, grok, IP, MIME, push and more. But one term was odd – Unabomber. Excuse me, what does a lunatic guy who sent bombs to people have to do with technology? Other interesting words are “Pong” and “Tetris.” Yes, they’re talking about the addictive games.

Someone asked how do we punctuate around smileys ? Smileys are made of punctuation marks and if the smiley is at the end of the sentence, it could be confusing with a period, question mark, or exclamation mark immediately after it.

Typically, I add a space after the smiley. Wired Style had a smiley at the end of a sentence and the period came immediate after like so . It’s legible, but what if it’s a short smiley ? I think it depends on Principle #1: The Medium Matters. In an informal email using less strict grammar and style rules, I leave out the sentence ending punctuation mark. If a bigwig national magazine wants an article, then I’d ask for their rules. Make the decision based on the medium and the audience, and then be consistent.

This is a good book to have in your library especially for techie writers. The definitions are useful, but there are free web sites like Webopedia to help. I don’t recommend using this as THE digital style guide, but help you create one. The most important thing is be consistent throughout your writing or web site.

VITAL STATISTICS:
TITLE: Wired Style : Principles of English Usage in the Digital
Age
AUTHORS: Constance Hale (Editor), Jessie Scanlon, Hale Scanlon
PUBLISHER: Broadway Books
PUBLICATION DATE: December 1999
ISBN: 0767903722
FORMAT: Paperback
PAGES: 176
PRICE: US$13

When I began writing articles about the Internet, World Wide Web, and email, I was unsure of how to punctuate or capitalize such words. Checking the dictionary was fruitless because the words hadn’t made it there. I sent an article draft to my sister, my second pair of eyes and a former journalist.

She responded, “You must go buy this book: Wired Style.” Good little sister that I am, I did as she commanded. Immediately, I used the book and it helped me through a few entanglements.

Later, I wrote my first article on grammar and used the book and its companion Web site as the primary source. The article was both well received and disliked.

Most readers were grateful to have someone clarify how to take care of these techie words. But some were horrified that I used such a reference instead of the Chicago Manual of Style or other old standard.

Wired’s introduction indicates that it’s “…intended to complement those guides by digging into questions that writers and editors confront daily – questions of style and substance that Chicago and AP (not to mention Strunk & White) don’t even imagine.” The others didn’t even address the issues I confronted while writing my article.

But would this be the stylebook for everyone? Many companies don’t use it since they don’t agree with Wired’s choice of word usage. For example, the infamous “email.” “Wired Style” says it should be “e-mail.” Many are against typing an extra keystroke for the hyphen. Even ibizhome uses “email.” Wired states “Web” is capitalized when referencing the Web, Web sites, Web pages and so on. On ibizforum, we use “web.”

The book can not only be used as a style guide or reference, but also as a digital glossary. It includes ASP, grok, IP, MIME, push and more. Other interesting words are “Pong” and “Tetris.” Yes, they’re talking about the addictive games.

The book lists ten principles for writing well in the digital age. Five relate to prose style and five cover copy-editing. Principle #2 encourages the writer to play with voice. Personally, I like the casual, first-person articles. They’re easy to read and enjoy.

Someone asked, how do we punctuate around smileys ? Smileys are made of punctuation marks. If the smiley is at the end of the sentence, it could be confused with a period, question mark, or exclamation mark immediately after it. Typically, I add a space after the smiley. “Wired Style” had a smiley at the end of a sentence and the period came immediately after, like so . It’s legible, but what if it’s a short smiley;)?

I think it depends on Principle #1: The Medium Matters. In an informal email using less strict grammar and style rules, I leave out the sentence ending punctuation mark. If a bigwig national magazine wants an article, then I’d ask for their rules. Make the decision based on the medium and the audience, and then be consistent.

This is a good book to have in your library, especially for techie writers. The definitions are useful, but there are free web sites like Webopedia to help. I don’t recommend using this as THE digital style guide, but it will help you create one. The most important thing is be consistent throughout your writing or web site.

Title: Wired Style
Author: Constance Hale and Jessie Scanlon
Publisher: Broadway
ISBN: 0767903722
Date: December 1999
Format: Paperback
Pages: 208
Price: Amazon Marketplace: $2..11