Order and rules can feel restrictive to a lot of people, especially when the reasoning behind rules is either difficult to understand or when the reasoning appears arbitrary. A frequent refrain is that “rules are meant to be broken.”
We see this in communication as the written word has evolved to modern day. Gone are the days when sentences are never allowed to be fragmented, as fragmented sentences can often be used for dramatic effect or to emphasize a point. Gone are the days when sentences can never end in prepositions, as this kind of sentence construction can feel stilted and overly formal.
Beginning in junior high and continuing through high school, my teachers instructed my classmates and me on formatting our papers according to the Modern Language Association Style Guide (MLA): font type and size; order of name, subject, teacher, and date on the top corner; placement and style of page numbering; placement of title; parenthetical citations; works cited…the list of rules was seemingly endless. By college, I was proficient in MLA and was pleased to know that my grasp of MLA was useful as an English major. Having already memorized the rules for when to spell out numbers or when to use numerals, for using punctuation inside or outside quotation marks, and for referencing my sources’ page numbers, writing came easily and offered me a regular framework in which to accomplish my assignments.
Style guides, then, offer a regular framework to provide consistency to the written project. This framework provides clarity, predictability, and form to a document that allows the writer to communicate clearly and succinctly to the reader because the reader does not have to work to discern meaning from the distractions of irregular formatting and inconsistent spellings, symbols, or other small details that, added together, make up a complete body of work.
While MLA was the gold standard for my English degree, my husband, a pharmacy student, was obligated to learn an entirely new style guide for his studies: the American Psychological Association (APA). While MLA is preferred for the arts and humanities, the APA is preferred for technical works and sciences.
So, what’s the difference? And, maybe more to the point: why does it matter?
The differences are sometimes subtle and nuanced, but the short answer is that each style guide is tailored to meet the needs and the usefulness of the information presented to the intended reader. In MLA documents, an emphasis will always be placed on the author or artist themself, and on the works created by them. In an APA report or journal article, the emphasis is not on the researcher or author, but on the results of the studies and the facts mined from them. The different formats allow the writers to build documents with the most clarity and information possible for the end-user, the reader.
There are many more style guides in use than just MLA and APA. Journalists and news outlets favor the Associated Press Style Guide (AP), and book publishers as well as general writers prefer the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS). It's important to be certain that you are referencing the most up-to-date style guide since the English language is ever-evolving, and purchasing the style guide in the most recent book format or subscribing to the online version are both good ways to ensure that your writing project is up to snuff.
Oftentimes businesses and organizations develop their own style guides and style sheets for the documents generated by their employees. The goal is not to adhere to a specific major style guide for the sake of following rules, but to develop a framework to allow the production of a body of written projects and documents that are consistent across the board in order to provide information and promote their products and services in a professional and clear manner. This regularity also accidentally means that document-creation actually takes less time to write, edit, and proofread since there is already a structure built to underpin the project!
These projects can range beyond journal articles and research reports to in-house communication and blog posts, from marketing pieces to manuals. Invoices, pricing sheets, and advertisements cannot be overlooked or underappreciated. All communication is made seamless and professional by employing a style guide. A major style guide can offer a starting place for consistency and allow for the organic development of a style unique to a specific company that allows them to make a real impact with the intended audience and to move the company forward as a force to be reckoned with.
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