A style guide is a document that contains standards for the writing, formatting, and design of documents. It can also include information on punctuation rules, word usage, spelling, capitalization, and so on. A style guide governs a lot of the smallest things like Oxford comma usage, as well as some bigger stuff like the tone of writing, for example. This document is not only about rules, but it also may contain best practices. For example, website style guides describe technical aspects along with text, while guides that cover usage may suggest best practices on describing people to avoid homophobia, racism, and sexism.
Style guides can be created for different goals, for example, it can be for general use of a broad public audience like Microsoft manual of style, or it can be specialized – for the group of people or specific industry.
Does your company need a style guide? Learn more from our blog post: Why Your Company Needs a Style Guide.