Style guide preparation is the turning of the organisation's spelling and style decisions into a document with examples. This page defines the scope of the item.
Scope
Extracting preferences from feedback and from existing documents, writing the decisions down with examples and dividing the document into sections by document type fall within this item.
Out of scope
The decisions themselves belong to the organisation. The guide puts the organisation's preferences in writing; it does not impose a new style.
It is not written from scratch
The most useful guides are born not from a blank page but from the accumulation of incoming corrections.
Decisions, not rules
Measurable decisions are written down instead of general advice that cannot be applied. Every entry should resolve a doubt.
Every decision carries an example
When correct and incorrect usage are shown side by side, no room is left for interpretation.
Formatting decisions
The writing of dates, numbers, currencies, abbreviations and forms of address comes up in every document; this is the most productive part of the guide.
Banned expressions
When the expressions the organisation does not want to use are listed, they become searchable and the check becomes automatic.
It is separate from the terminology list
The terminology list holds the equivalents, while the guide holds how to write. If the two are mixed, neither can be searched.
It is kept short
A thirty-page document is not read. A guide of a few pages that is searchable and has examples is actually used; as the length grows, the chance of it being opened falls.
Approval
The decisions in the guide are the organisation's decisions and require an approving authority.
Source authors use it too
If the guide is used only for translation, source texts go on being written by their own rules.
Updating
When a new preference emerges, it is defined where it will be added and by whom.
It is divided by document type
In a contract precision comes first, in a promotional text fluency does; a single style does not suit every document. A guide divided into sections is more realistic and also leads more quickly to the entry being sought.
Examples are taken from real text
A made-up example may not represent the difficulties found in real documents. In examples taken from the organisation's own texts, client and personal details are removed.
Its applicability is measured
If findings keep recurring despite the guide, the problem may lie not in the application but in the entry itself: the decision is unclear or it has no example. In that case the entry is rewritten.
The first version is short
Waiting for a complete guide leads to the document never appearing at all. A first version of a few pages is enriched over time through feedback.
The approving authority is written down
The decisions in the guide are the organisation's decisions and require approval. An unapproved text remains a suggestion; different departments go on following their own preferences.
Takeaway
A guide is valuable when it is a yardstick that ends the debate. Being fed by feedback, every decision carrying an example, being short and searchable and having a defined update route: a document prepared without these four is never opened.