How and Why You Should Build a Style Sheet

In the world of writing and editing, “style” can refer to two different things. The first tends to elicit more interest: style as authorial, literary style, encompassing voice and tone, how you choose to present your argument and speak to your audience. Then there is the more begrudgingly acknowledged style: the one that is called in when you’re instructed to follow Chicago, MLA or APA style or to reformat your article according to a journal’s style guide.

Authors may view the style of style manuals, style guides and style sheets—detailed guidelines for what gets capitalized, hyphenated, italicized and so much more—as an imposition or just kind of a drag. It can be frustrating to reformat your references every time you submit to a new journal or to search a document for every use of the word “century,” changing “19th” to “nineteenth.” But this second sort of style can be as much at the heart of your scholarly writing—and as much a reflection of your research values, priorities and politics—as how you narrate and defend your work.

What Is a Style Sheet?

One of the best ways to begin to grasp the power of style choices in humanities and social science writing is to create a style sheet for your own project. While style manuals (such as the Chicago Manual of Style or the MLA Handbook) set out general rules, and a publisher’s or journal’s style guide may provide more field-specific guidelines, a style sheet is tailored to your work. Copy editors often create style sheets, especially for book-length projects, which record all the style decisions that have been made in the manuscript.

Even if you’re not working with a professional editor, you can create a sheet for yourself that will save you time and energy by making your writing consistent from the outset. Making a style sheet can also allow you to reflect on what is important to you in your work. Below, I’ll lay out the elements you will most likely want to consider when pulling together a style sheet for your project, and you can see all of them captured on a sample style sheet here.

How Do You Cite Names in References and in the Text?

A good place to start is to keep lists of names (of people, places or groups and organizations) mentioned in your manuscript to ensure they are always spelled and capitalized correctly and consistently. If you include a historical figure’s middle initial in Chapter One, you’ll want to do the same thing in Chapter Four. If you cite multipart surnames, how are those names alphabetized and capitalized?

While in some fields it may be common to omit the first names of scholars in the text, you might think about the politics of citation and whose work you are making visible by including full names. If you provide scholars’ full names, readers are more likely to become aware of their work than if they see a passing or parenthetical mention of a “Smith.” This can be a way to shine a light on the work of scholars from marginalized backgrounds or any work you want readers to appreciate as you do.

Place names can have many variants; which have you chosen? If you haven’t yet made a determination, think about what is behind those variant spellings: Is one spelling more common in the place in question? Do the names and spellings reflect a history of colonialism you want to shed light on through your choices (such as Aotearoa versus New Zealand)?

How Do You Handle Non-English Text and Translations?

If multiple languages appear in your manuscript, consider how you want to handle them and outline that on your style sheet. What is the title capitalization style in the other languages you cite? You can include an example of correct capitalization on your sheet. If you are including words or names transliterated from a non-Roman alphabet, what system are you using?

If non-English words appear throughout your English-language manuscript, how do you want to handle them? While it’s common to italicize foreign words on first reference, perhaps that doesn’t make sense for concepts that are at the core of your project, or perhaps you don’t want to frame certain words as foreign to your readership.

Your style sheet can be a place to make a case for the values and politics of multilingualism. Letitia Henville has written on these choices in her “Ask Dr. Editor” column. Are you translating all quotations into English, and, if so, where do you want the translation to appear (in parentheses following the original, before the original, in a footnote)? Consider how easily you want readers to be able to access the translation and the original quotation. It’s easy to develop a hodgepodge of solutions during the writing process, and the style you choose on the style sheet becomes a guideline to check against.

What Guides the Word List?

Perhaps the most important element of the style sheet is an alphabetized list of words that are specific to your project or are handled in a way that deviates from your preferred dictionary or style manual.

In building a word list, think first about your audience. Maybe your book audience is broader than your article audience, and you want to craft your manuscript to reflect that. That may mean cutting back on acronyms even for recurring terms. Would it help to have a list of acronyms at the start of the book? If you do use acronyms, will they be defined on first reference in every chapter?

Consider that readers may download a single chapter of your monograph and won’t necessarily have encountered definitions that appeared earlier in the text. Similarly, are there other technical terms you want to gloss when they first appear in each chapter?

What Language Is Specific to Your Content and Values?

If you’ve created neologisms or are using language in a creative way as part of your analytical approach, it is helpful to note those words on your style sheet and make sure you’re rendering them consistently. In my book, I used the term “non-little-girlness” (rather than “non-little-girl-ness” or “non-little girlness”). But early in the writing process, I probably had all three!

If you want editors to be aware that you are intentionally using terms in a certain way or intentionally avoiding some terminology, a style sheet is a good place to indicate that. If you are writing about people in prison and there is an important difference to you between “incarceration” and “imprisonment,” you can note that on your style sheet.

What identity categories do you capitalize? If you are writing about disability, do you use identity-first language, person-first language or both? If you are describing case studies or fieldwork, you may want to note that the language you use will vary based on the preferences of the individuals you spoke with.

Do you consistently use the singular “they” and “their” for the generic third person? Or perhaps you are using “she” to make visible the historically overlooked role of women in your field. Maybe you have chosen to use “U.S.” as an adjective, reserving “American” for when you are referring to the Americas more broadly. That’s something else to add to the style sheet.

Back to Basics

The top of your style sheet will feature a number of basic elements. First, information about which dictionary, style manual and reference style you are using. For anything not addressed explicitly on your sheet, editors will know to default to those guidelines. But style manuals still leave many things to choice, and a style sheet essentially records the choices you make. Which numbers are rendered in numerals and which are spelled out? Do you use em dashes or en dashes to set off parenthetical remarks? Are you using the serial comma in lists of three or more things? Are you using full or abbreviated number ranges? If these details feel overwhelming or likely to escape your attention, working with a copy editor who can draw up a style sheet and standardize your manuscript may be a good option.

Style as Conversation

While style is often understood as a set of rules, your style sheet can in fact be the start of a conversation. If your book publisher usually handles a style issue differently from how you have, having a style sheet with well-considered reasoning behind your choices may introduce some flexibility. Editors, like all readers, are looking for clarity and consistency; the rules in a style guide aren’t the law, and if you have a reason you want to deviate from your publisher’s standard style, most editors will listen to you.

As an author, you make thousands of decisions about how you express yourself and articulate your argument. In that process, some of the smaller stylistic details can slip through the cracks, and those inconsistencies can undercut the cohesiveness of the manuscript and affect how readers perceive your argument. If you take some time to pull together a sheet documenting your style decisions, not only can you strengthen your final product, but you might be surprised by the insights you gain into how language and editorial style are shaping your work.