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Well-written, error-free business documents that follow a consistent style throughout send a two-fold message: professionalism and credibility. And they add to an organization’s image and promote its brand.

If your written correspondent is riddled with misspelled words and poor grammar (“They had went …”), the problem is obvious, but inconsistency in style also subtly telegraphs a lack of professionalism. And a lack of professionalism translates into a lack of credibility.

So what style should you choose? There are many styles and many variations of styles. It doesn’t really matter which one you choose. The important thing is consistency and uniformity.

“Uniformity in usage is more important than adherence to any given style.” This is a quote from the “Rules for the Guidance of Authors and Translators” issued by Alfred A. Knopf, the prestigious New York publishing house Alfred A. Knopf.

You can create a style guide for your organization that will give you consistency and uniformity and at the same time enhance your brand. It is not difficult, but it does require thought, time and effort.

Here’s how:

1. First choose somebody in your organization to handle the project. The team leader ideally should:
   a. have a good command of English;
   b. be familiar with the rules of grammar and spelling;
   c. be detail oriented;
   d. understand your organization’s mission and goals.
2. The next step is to evaluate your organization’s writing.
   a. Look at letters, documents, web content, brochures: everything your organization writes. This should be an ongoing process but the team leader also should get examples of past writing from the archives.
   b. Look for grammatical errors, misspellings and misused words. Watch for such things as lack of parallel structure, misplaced modifiers, missing apostrophes, incorrect plurals, incorrect possessives, sentence fragments and run-on sentences. See if patterns develop. If you know the writers, you can help them overcome their deficiencies. You also should post a list of the most common errors so that all can profit.
   c. Look at all abbreviations, numbers, and capitalization. Specifically check ages, addresses, publication titles, computer terms, forms of address, measurements, money, percentages, sexism. Compile a list of these things, showing the various ways they are written.
   d. Look at the fonts (typefaces) used in your documents and publications. Are they consistent or do they vary from document to document?
3. Choose a general style guide. There are many to choose from. Perhaps he best known is the Gregg Reference Manual by William Sabin (published by McGraw-Hill). Other style guides include the Chicago Manual of Style, the APA Publication Manual, MLA Handbook, and even the venerable Harbrace College Handbook. The standard for the news business is the Associated Press Stylebook. It also is used by several colleges and universities. The team leader should ascertain which guide best fits the mission of your organization.
4. Choose a good dictionary as your basic authority on spelling, acceptable abbreviations and other matters not covered by your style guide. Again, there are a variety of good dictionaries from which to choose. I mostly use Webster’s New World College Dictionary (fourth edition) because it is the official dictionary of The Associated Press and that is the style guide I use most frequently. I have a number of other dictionaries in my reference library, including both the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary and the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.
5. The style guides give good general rules in all areas, but beyond that they offer a variety of choices. Using your style guide and dictionary, choose the style your organization wants to use for capitalization, abbreviations, numbers etc.
   a. Abbreviations. News organizations use a lot of abbreviations. Book publishers spell out almost everything. But there are some abbreviations and acronyms that are so universally accepted that many people don’t even know they originally stood for. A good example is ZIP code. Did you know that ZIP stands for “Zone Improvement Plan”? FBI, CIA, NASA and others familiar acronyms and abbreviations do not need to be spelled out.
   Most style guides recommend that postal abbreviations for states be used only in addresses. The more traditional abbreviations are recommended when using the state name with a city, e.g., Omaha, Neb., Knoxville, Tenn., Enid, Okla. Some large cities, such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, do not need to be followed by the state. Another alternative is to spell out the state.
   b. Numbers. This is probably the most difficult area to deal with. A good standard rule is to spell out numbers one through nine or one through ten, and use numerals for everything else. But there will be many exceptions to that rule: currency ($5); dates (September 4); percentages 3% etc. Again, some book publishers spell out almost all numbers, but even they have exceptions.
   c. Capitalization. Again, there are general rules that everybody should follow: the first word in a sentence, proper nouns (the official names of persons, places and things), titles with names, names of organizations, etc. Most organizations prefer a downstyle (lower case) on just about everything else. But there may be some special words that your company wants to always capitalize. You need to make a list of those words and include them in your manual.
   d. Type styles. Decide on the typefaces you want to use in your correspondence and other documents. Also decide on the use of bold, italic and underlined type and whether documents should always be justified or ragged right.
   —Typefaces. In general, choose a body type and a heading type. I prefer a serif body type and sans serif heading type. Perhaps the most common faces these days are Times New Roman (serif) and Ariel (sans serif). Avoid using multiple typefaces.
   —Type size. Standardize the size of your body type and your heading type. For most purposes—letters, essays, memos etc.—12-point body type works well. The size of headings depends on too many factors for an adequate discussion here.
   —Emphasis. Boldface, italics and underlining are used for emphasis. Never use quotation marks for emphasis. Underlining was used in the days of manual typewriters mostly to indicate italics. It can still be used for some purposes, but not as a substitute for italics. Use all emphasis devices sparingly.
   e. Keep your choices as simple as possible. Allow exceptions but keep them to a minimum.
6. After you have compiled your initial style list, it’s a good idea to bring in others, especially secretaries, who regularly write or edit documents for the organization. Get their input and suggestions. These are the people who will be using the style and they need to feel they had a say in creating it.

After the style manual has been reviewed approved by all concerned, including the head of the organization, print it and distribute it to everybody in the organization. Style is fluid. It can change. As you work with it, you will discover things that you didn’t include. Questions will come up that require changes or additions. Therefore, I recommend that instead of binding the manual, you put it in a loose-leaf notebook. That way individual pages can be changed at will without having to reprint the entire document.

Finally, after you have firmly decided on the style you want, much of it can be programmed into your computer programs such as Microsoft Word. That will help ensure adherence to the style by all parties.

If you don’t have the time or resources to follow this procedure, call WET Ink Solutions and we’ll give you an estimate on what it would cost to do it for you.

What do you think of when you hear the word “style”?

Perhaps you think of fashionable clothing: “She dresses with style.” Or the way a pitcher throws a baseball: “He pitches with a side-arm style.” Or the design of something: “The house was built in the classical style.”

Or you may think of a literary style. “Many writers have tried without success to imitate Hemingway’s style of writing.”

Style can also mean a set of rules on spelling, punctuation, capitalization, abbreviation and the like. Newspapers, magazines, and book publishers all have fixed style sheets or manuals that they follow rigorously. Many large firms also have well-defined style guidelines that they ask all employees who write on behalf of the company to follow. Unfortunately, most smaller businesses do not follow style guidelines, and the result often makes them look unprofessional.

Why is a specific style needed?

In English, we often have more than one correct way to write things. For instance, how do you write the date? You may write it in the military style: 29 Sept. 11. Or you may write it: September 29, 2011. Or: September 29th, 2002. Or: September the seventh, 2011. Or: the twenty-ninth of September in 2011. Or: Sept. 29, 2011. Or: 9/29/2011. You can probably think of other variations. Are any of these forms incorrect? Not really. In America, the custom is to write dates in cardinal rather than ordinal numbers, but many people use the ordinals and some forms are acceptable, the Fourth of July, for instance.

The same is true for writing addresses. You can write: 321 North Main Street, or 321 North Main St., or 321 N. Main St. Again, they are all correct.

Numbers present a particularly difficult problem. Do you spell them out or use the numerals: five, six, twenty-one, thirty-five, six million; 5, 6, 21, 35, 6,000,000 (or 6 million)? Even the people who devise style rules have trouble with a comprehensive and logical rule on numbers. The Associated Press and most American newspapers spell out one through nine and use numerals for 10 and above. But they are many exceptions to that rule.

Abbreviations and acronyms also are difficult. We live in a world of verbal alphabet soup. Some abbreviations and acronyms are commonly accepted and understood by just about everybody: Dr., Mr. Mrs., Rev., NASA, OAS, CIA, FBI, just to name a few. But where do you draw the line? For many years, AP required the spelled out name first followed by the acronym or abbreviation in parenthesis, e.g., Organization of American States (OAS). Many publications and writers still use that form, but AP a few years ago decided that introducing the acronym parenthetically was not necessary. “Do not follow an organization’s full name woith an abbreviation or acronym in parentheses or set off by dashes. If an abbreviation or acronym would not be clear on second reference without this arrangement, do not use it,” the AP Stylebook says.

Many words have more than one acceptable spelling: theater or theatre, for instance. The latter, in this case, is generally considered the British spelling, but many American theaters use it in their names: the Tennessee Theatre, for example. It’s acceptable to use a British or other spelling if that is a part of an organization’s name, but otherwise we should stick to American spelling.

These questions, and dozens more just like them, may seem inconsequential. But the ability to follow a prescribed style is very important in writing of any kind, from academic papers to news stories.

I’ll be writing more on this subject.

Edgar Miller