Why Have a Company Style Manual?

Is an in-house style manual just another “nice, but not necessary” business tool?

As a business grows, it produces more correspondence, email, proposals, marketing material, press releases, and articles in outside publications.  Then there are white papers, HR booklets, and documents that must comply with government standards.   Sooner or later, there’s confusion about the “right way” to write something.  There may already be general (unspoken) agreement about writing style, but a new employee or an outside writer will be at a disadvantage.

Advantages to having a company style manual:

• Provides consistency
• Establishes a certain “sound” for external publications
• Answers common questions on usage, punctuation, and abbreviations
• Sets rules for avoiding charges of sexism
• Saves time spent on revisions

A good way to start is for the company to adopt a third-party style guide, such as The Chicago Manual of Style.  There are other, industry-specific and technical, style guides.  Next, the company can use the third-party guide as backup and write a supplement that gives:

• Terminology used by the company and its industry
• The company’s preferences – including those that differ with the third-party guide
• Answers to FAQs from the staff and outside parties
• Examples of writing that complies with the company’s style