Not everyone needs a 70-page style guide. Here are the basics to ensure your content remains consistent. You can always use your default dictionary and style guide as fallbacks.
Voice and tone
- Friendly or formal?
- Cheerful or sober?
- Opinionated or factual?
- Funny or serious?
Default dictionary
- Merriam Webster
- Oxford
- Canadian Oxford
- Dictionary.com
- Other:
Default style guide
- Chicago
- Associated Press
- Canadian Press
- Other:
Spelling
- US
- UK
- Canada
- Other
Date style
- January 30, 2020
- 2020/01/30
Contractions
- Do
- Don't
Capitalization style
- Sentence case
- Title Case
Oxford comma?
- Yes, yes, and yes
- Never, no and nope
- Only when needed for clarity
Emojis?
- 🤟🏼
- 👎🏼
Are companies...
- They (Microsoft plans to update their Office suite)
- It (Microsoft plans to update its Office suite)