Authored by UNG Press Intern Autumn Cleymans
While anyone who has written a paper for school has encountered style guides, not everyone is familiar with the purpose of a style sheet. The terms might sound similar, but there are significant differences in how each tool is made and applied. Here is a simple breakdown of both tools and their important role in the editing process.
What is a Style Guide
A style guide is an official set of overarching rules and guidelines for writers and editors to follow. It establishes standards for categories like spelling, punctuation, and formatting, in just about every situation you can think of. Official style guides include MLA (Modern Language Association), APA (American Psychological Association), CMOS (Chicago Manual of Style), and AP (Associated Press); CMOS is the preferred style for the publishing industry.
A house style guide is a guide that’s specific to a press/publishing house and applied to all internal works. While it’s usually based on an official style guide like CMOS, it also includes house-specific rules that differ from the official norms. For example, while CMOS excludes periods in “US,” the UNG Press house style guide includes periods (i.e., “U.S.”), overriding the official rule.
What is a Style Sheet?
A style sheet is basically a style guide on a more focused scale—it’s specific to a work or manuscript. It tracks editorial choices in terms of spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and more. In fictional works, that includes character and place names, as well as words in made-up languages. In non-fiction, that includes people and place names, numbers, and field-related jargon.
A style sheet also tends to focus on situations that come up in the work, rather than every possible scenario. For example, at the UNG Press, a style sheet for a literary fiction title might track the proper spelling for character names and any special choices that the author made in punctuation, capitalization, italics, and more. A style sheet for one of our AUSA (Association of the U.S. Army) titles might track people’s ranks, the proper spelling for names and locations, and the way to handle numbers in a military context.
Why are These Tools Important?
Style guides and sheets are key to maintaining consistency and professionalism throughout the editing process. Style guides ensure a uniform writing style in a genre or field (e.g., CMOS is preferred in publishing, while AP style is preferred in journalism), and house guides ensure that editors within a press/publishing house apply the same technical criteria across genres. This presents a cohesive house style and matches readers’ expectations of genre style.
Style sheets provide the same uniformity within a single work. Readers tend to notice if a character’s name is spelled three different ways, or if a word is only capitalized some of the time, and that reflects poorly on both the author and the publisher. Style sheets keep track of every stylistic choice in a manuscript and ensure that certain words, terms, and numbers are treated the same way throughout the work.
Who Creates These Tools? Who Uses Them?
Official style guides like CMOS are developed and updated by a dedicated team of experts, which is why new editions are released every now and then. House style guides are developed within a press/publishing house and may not need to be updated as often. Style sheets are usually made by the copy editor, but the author can contribute a partial style sheet with their manuscript, especially since they’re the expert on any unique or made-up terminology.
Authors benefit from knowing the preferred style guide in their field; after all, a manuscript written in Chicago probably requires fewer stylistic edits than one written in another style. Mostly, though, style guides and sheets are used in the last stages of editing. The copy editor refers to a style guide (official or house) while making any style sheet. If the copy editor notices that a word is spelled two different ways, they may consult an official dictionary and/or query the author to determine which to keep. The editor then notes that choice on the work’s style sheet. The proofreader receives the completed style sheet to reference in the final round of edits, just in case any inconsistencies made it through.
In this way, style guides and sheets not only maintain a consistent image, but also facilitate smooth collaboration between authors and editors, which makes working on a manuscript easier for everyone involved.
Resources
While style guides and style sheets are different tools, both are important for the efficiency of the editing process. If you’re interested in learning more, here is a link to the Chicago Manual of Style website and the Reedsy article “What Is an Editorial Style Sheet? [+Templates]” where you can download style sheet templates. If you have any questions about these tools, feel free to leave them in the comments, and we’ll be happy to answer!
Sources:
Gradin, Linnea. “What Is an Editorial Style Sheet? [+Templates].” Reedsy, Reedsy Ltd, 27 May 2024, blog.reedsy.com/freelancer/what-is-an-editorial-style-sheet/.
“How to Create a Style Guide: 5 Components of a Style Guide.” MasterClass, MasterClass, 7 June 2021, www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-create-a-style-guide.
Howe, Rachel. “Style Guide, Style Sheet—What’s the Difference?” Ooligan Press, Ooligan Press, 25 Apr. 2022, www.ooliganpress.com/style-guide-style-sheet/.
Oestreich, Rae. “The Difference between Style Guides and Style Sheets.” The Wallflower Editing, The Wallflower Editing: Freelance Book Editing Services, 13 Nov. 2024, thewallflowerediting.com/the-difference-between-style-guides-and-style-sheets/.
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