As an author, you’re likely pretty familiar with the concept of “writing style.” However, you might know less about “editorial style.” Where writing style refers to a writer's unique voice and how they utilize and apply language, editorial style refers to a set of guidelines that editors use to help make the author’s words as consistent and effective as possible.

If you are a new author, you might be a little unfamiliar with the editorial process—in other words, how things work as a piece of writing moves through the editorial pipeline. One of the biggest components of that journey is what is known as a “style sheet.” A style sheet is used to track the editorial style used for each editing project.

So, how is a style sheet used, exactly? What’s on it? Those questions and more will be answered in this blog, so read on!

Common Style Guides

You might remember writing papers and essays in college or university, and having to ensure you follow “APA style” or “MLA style” for your citation and referencing setup. These are just two of the most commonly used style guides that exist. Each style guide has its own rules and guidelines that are, to a point, dependent on the type of writing they are being applied to. Here is a quick rundown.

Chicago Style

The Chicago Manual of Style (or, as it’s also often known, CMOS) is pretty much the standard in book publishing. Originally published in 1906 by the University of Chicago Press, it is released in an updated edition every seven to ten years. It is a very in-depth and detailed guide that acts as a comprehensive reference for grammar, citation, usage, preparation, and much, much more. 

APA Style

APA stands for the “American Psychological Association,” the group that first developed this style in 1929. Its creation was intended to ensure consistency amongst papers in the psychology field; however, its use quickly expanded and it is now standard in many branches of the social sciences. APA style focuses on keeping things simple in terms of conveying information and in terms of formatting. It also includes rules for how to treat tables, citations, abbreviations, and even the structure of writing itself.

MLA Style

This style was created by the Modern Language Association of America in 1985, and the organization’s name should give you a solid hint about how it is commonly applied. It is often used in the liberal arts and humanities in academia, especially in English studies and literature, and is geared toward post-secondary students as well as graduate students.

AP Style

Don’t confuse this one with APA! This style, created by the Associated Press, is quite different from its siblings in that it is specifically devoted to journalism (though it can be applied in other fields such as broadcasting, marketing, and even corporate communications). That intended usage is apparent when you examine the finer points of the style’s guidelines. For example, it advises against the use of the Oxford (or series) comma and uses numerals for all numbers above nine.

The reason for such variances from other style guides comes down to conserving space. You might have as much room to work with as you want in a book manuscript, but that is definitely not the case when you’re working within the limited constraints of a newspaper column! AP style keeps things sparse and concise when you need all the extra space you can get.

Turabian Style

This style comes from A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, written by Kate Turabian in 1937. It is a modified version of The Chicago Manual of Style. Known simply as “Turabian,” this style guide is a sort of “gold standard” for post-secondary and graduate students and can be applied to virtually all academic areas. 

At the heart of this style is the idea that the foundations of good research remain the same regardless of format: do it carefully, present it clearly and accurately, and follow academic standards for citation, style, and format.

What Is Included on a Style Sheet?

The Editor’s Style Sheet

A style sheet can include any number of details related to the editing choices made for a given work, but the aim of tracking all those details is to ensure consistency. If you’re editing a novel and you can’t remember if you used “8:00 p.m.” in chapter 3 or “8:00 PM,” that is a great detail to include on a style sheet. 

Similarly, how are numbers being treated? Is every number up to ninety-nine spelled out? Or are numbers spelled out up to nine and then numerals used for 10 and up? Are there words that have alternate spellings that you’ll need to keep track of? And so on.

Most style sheets identify the style guide being used (CMOS, APA) and the specific dictionary that is being used (Canadian Oxford, Merriam-Webster). 

To keep details organized, the style sheet is set up into key sections, which most often include:

• usage (what is italicized or not italicized when it comes to titles of works)
• punctuation (closed or open dashes, type of dash, series comma used or not, type of quotation marks used, plural possessives)
• numbers (how dates are formatted, when to use numerals vs. spelling out, percentages, monetary amounts)
• capitalization
• spelling (OK vs. okay, colour vs. color)

A style sheet’s section on spelling will track spellings according to the version of English used—American English or British/Canadian English.  It also tracks words that are hyphenated (by-product vs. byproduct), how certain words might be treated differently depending on their use as a noun or adjective (decision-making skills vs. decision making as a concept), and any other tricky treatments that need to be remembered.

Fiction style sheets might track even more information. These details include trademarked names used in the book, place names, character names, even character details. If a character mentions offhand that they have blue eyes, it can be a good idea to add that to the style sheet. 

More than once I’ve come across such a throwaway detail early in a book, then many chapters later had the character’s physical description mentioned again, only to notice that now their eye colour is different. In a trilogy, a background character might first be introduced as “Joel MacInnes” but in in the next book, suddenly they are “Joel McInnes.” 

In situations like these, you’ll be thankful for a style sheet that organizes these details for easy reference.  

The Author’s Style Sheet

Style sheets can be helpful to authors, too, even if they are not used in exactly the same way. An author can track character details, such as physical descriptions, job titles, familial relations, name spellings, and so on. 

The style sheet can also be used to track specific word spellings that have been used and why, as well as formatting decisions, such as using italics on emails or text messages.  

Plus, editors very much appreciate receiving a style sheet that already has this valuable information tracked and set out! It will also tell an editor what to look out for if something is different from what’s recorded on the style sheet the author created.

Consistency Is the Goal

It’s important for details to remain consistent throughout any piece of writing, whether a journal article, newspaper column, or a full-length manuscript. Readers will pick up on errors—for example, “it’s” and “its” are common errors that creep into writing and readers notice these!  

It’s often difficult to remember all the details being applied to a manuscript, or how every single detail is being treated. Maybe in chapter 2, the author used “U.S.” and then in chapter 7 suddenly uses “US” instead. It’s easy to track such things when they appear often in a manuscript, but much harder when something is only mentioned or used two or three times.

A style sheet allows editors to keep a record of rules they’re applying to a piece of writing, both to refer to as they move through the edits (“How did I spell byproduct again?”) and to answer questions that come up as they edit. 

A style sheet can also answer questions that other editors might have once they take their turn to edit. A detailed and specific style sheet created by a copyeditor is a huge boon to a proofreader once a project makes its way to that stage of editing.

Authors and editors have the same goal, in the end: to produce a clean, consistent, and readable piece of writing that highlights an author’s ideas and stories. A style sheet is one of the keys to reaching that goal!