When you’re deep in the work of editing, compiling a style sheet can feel like just another admin task to tick off. But a good style sheet does so much more than document spelling choices and hyphenation quirks – it supports everyone who touches the project after you.
A style sheet should never be an afterthought. It should be carefully planned, consciously compiled and thoughtfully tailored.
Let’s take a closer look at how to create a strong, effective style sheet.
What’s the difference between a style sheet and a style guide?
The first thing you need to understand when you begin to compile a style sheet is how it differs from a style guide. I talked about this a bit in my article on how to absorb any editorial style guide, but here’s a quick recap:
- A style guide is a document of general editorial recommendations or requirements. It may be tailored to a specific genre or type of publication (e.g. the Associated Press Stylebook is primarily for journalists) or it may be more general (e.g. in the case of The Chicago Manual of Style). Publishers and organizations often have their own bespoke style guide (commonly called a ‘house style’).
- A style sheet is a document created to reflect the contents of a specific project. It may refer heavily to a style guide. Alternatively, it may be fully bespoke to the project (commonly called ‘author style’).
In my course Perfect Handovers for Editorial Projects, I also talk about how a style guide is prescriptive (in the sense that it lays out its suggestions about what you should do) whereas a style sheet is descriptive (in the sense that it describes which editorial decisions have been made in a specific project).
In simple terms, this means that you shouldn’t try to jam rules on every possible aspect of style into your style sheet.
Your style sheet should reflect the key points that will enable others (e.g. the author, the project manager, the proofreader and perhaps others) to:
- Quickly understand the project’s style principles
- Be consistent with those principles if further changes are made
That’s it.
In this sense, the style sheet is both humble and powerful. It doesn’t need pretensions to grandeur, but at the same time it truly can make or break a project.
Stop! Who is your style sheet’s reader?
I’m sure you already have a reader in mind – that is, the reader of the project you’re editing.
But what about the reader, or user, of your style sheet?
Before you begin merrily listing compound adjectives and number treatments, pause to consider: Who is your style sheet for? How will they use it? Will they even understand its purpose?
A new indie author and a project manager for a global publisher (for example) will have wildly different requirements of your style sheet. Use your editorial training to put yourself in future users’ place. What do they need to know to understand and make the most of the document you’re offering them?
At the start of my style sheets, I include information to help known and potential users orient to the document, so they can make the most of it.
Basic topics to cover in an editorial style sheet
Now we can start to think about what to include in the body of the style sheet.
It’s essential to include your basic spelling style (e.g. ‘UK English with ize endings’). If the project follows a specific dictionary, you should specify that too.
Beyond that, most style sheets will include rules and examples for:
- abbreviations
- capitalization
- dates
- lists
- numbers
- punctuation
But remember: you’re compiling a style sheet, not writing a style guide. It’s about finding a balance.
Clearly it wouldn’t be helpful to have a style sheet that simply says ‘see MLA Style Manual’. But equally, if your project follows MLA style (or whichever style guide is relevant) very closely, you probably don’t need to go into great detail or provide many examples.
On the other hand, your project might depart considerably from a style guide or do its own thing entirely (‘author style’ – see above). In that case, you will probably need to go into more detail in your style sheet.
In both these scenarios, take care to list exceptions and oddities. These are instances where your project does something contrary to the style guide or to what might usually be expected in a project of its type. It’s vital to list these clearly to avoid unwanted ‘corrections’ being made later in the process, after the project has left your hands.
Most editorial style sheets will be a few pages long. But here’s an example of a much larger beast: 66 pages of a style sheet that I’ve compiled over almost ten years for one of my encyclopedia projects. (The image is deliberately illegible to maintain confidentiality.)
The word list is where you put spellings specific to your project. For example, you might state that the project uses ‘focusing’ (not ‘focussing’) or that a certain historical person’s name uses the French variant (Pierre) and not the Russian (Piotr).
In my experience, word lists are where editors most widely diverge in how much detail to include. Personally, I like a nice generous word list as it reduces ambiguity. But you don’t need to include every permutation. For example, you can say ‘re-e… prefixes are always hyphenated’ rather than determinedly setting out every one, from ‘re-earn’ to ‘re-examine’.
Again, when you’re deciding what to include, bear the likely user(s) of your style sheet in mind. How can you support them so they make the most of your style sheet without being overwhelmed?
Referencing guidance (if relevant)
Love them or hate them, if your project contains references, their styles must appear in your style sheet.
I can’t count the number of times a client has told me they follow a specific style (such as Chicago or APA) and then sent me guidance that diverges from the named style guide.
This is absolutely fine: it’s the client’s prerogative to use whatever reference style they choose.
But this variation is a symptom of the almost endless potential for references to have exceptions and oddities.
So, always list examples for all the key reference types, including:
books (both edited and authored)
- journal articles
- book chapters
- printed reports
- online reports
- online articles
- anything else relevant to your project
And always provide details of exceptions and oddities. It’s amazing how much time some well-crafted guidance can save for someone trying to unlock the puzzle of a manuscript’s referencing styles.
Specialist topics
The final major area to cover in your style sheet is anything specific to the subject matter.
For example, my art history style sheets contain lists of gallery names and specify whether each gallery’s location should be mentioned at first use. A chemistry-related project may specify when to spell out the names of compounds and when to use abbreviations. And a fiction style sheet will lay out the project’s conventions around dialogue.
On many projects, this specialist information may be extensive. This is because it is here that a project is most likely to be unique, and unique aspects of a project should always appear on its style sheet (as we saw above in the discussion of style sheets vs style guides).
Listing this unique information ensures that the client’s preferences will be respected by those who come after you in the editorial workflow.
Carefully compile your style sheet as you work through a project, always keeping its end users in mind.