Write It Well

It can confuse readers to see inconsistent styles across one organization’s documents. Editorial style guides can solve that problem. They’re collections of rules for all employees to follow – ensuring a standard quality for all the writing an organization sends out.

This weekend, someone at the New York Times website mixed two capitalization styles in one article link. “Case Study” is a regular feature in nytimes.com’s T Magazine, and “Rhubarb Syrup” is an article by its author. The lowercase s in the ad on the top clashes with the Times‘s style guide. It’s inconsistent with both the linked article and even the words immediately before it.

A style guide lays a solid groundwork for an organization’s consistent identity. Once a style guide is distributed, careful proofreading keeps the organization’s image crisp and coherent.

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For guidelines on parallel style in lists and sentences, see our updated book Professional Writing Skills: A Write It Well Guide.

Write It Well offers proofreading and editing services for your own or your employees’ writing. Just send us a sample document, noting any concerns or goals you have for it. We’ll copyedit a sample portion for free and return it within two days.

You’ll get estimates of the cost and time frame for our sending you back a full, edited document that will make a great impression.

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Tags: capitalization, headline-style capitalization, New York Times, rhubarb, sentence-style capitalization, simple syrup, style differences, style guides, T Magazine

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