What is Style?

What is Style?

An Introduction to the Style and Reference Manual

The primary reason organizations have a style manual -- and LFC and LESC have a style manual and a professional editor -- is to ensure consistency. Uniformity is important because a mish-mash of formatting and word use is distracting to the reader. And is, let’s face it, ugly. A set of style rules also means you don’t have to guess what you’re supposed to do with indents or headers or commas. Having a set of rules makes it easier for you and your reader.

Consistency

  • A common voice - An organization should speak with a common voice. Developing a common tone, a common approach to writing, puts the analyst in the background and the issue up front. You write for the committee and the committee needs a consistent tone.

  • Uniformity of spelling, abbreviation, punctuation, formatting, and other items with a variety of correct options - This style manual, like almost all style manuals, creates uniform approaches to spelling, abbreviations, punctuation, formatting and other items with a variety of correct options. Much of what you were taught as grammar is actually style. This manual will reinforce many of your preconceptions, but it might also contradict some. A contradiction is usually a sign it’s a style issue.

  • Establishment of a brand so the reader knows they can trust this document because of its source - Having a consistent look is also key to creating a brand. When someone picks up one of your documents, they should know from the font, the layout, the colors, the logo they are reading something from your organization. Because LFC and LESC have credibility among policymakers and the public, just knowing the document is from LFC or LESC brings credibility to your work.

Clarity

  • Guidance for how to write clearly and concisely - The LFC and LESC manuals include writing tips and quick guides to sentences and paragraphs.

  • Identification of jargon and insider terms for alternatives - The manuals specifically identify terms familiar to only those inside the Roundhouse.

Credibility

  • Documents that look professional and read as knowledgeable - A manual that establishes consistency in tone, appearance, and word and punctuation use builds credibility.

Readability is important, not just to your primary readers – the committee – but also to the Legislature as a whole and, most importantly, to the public. Government transparency can’t only be availability. It must also be accessibility. Documents that are dense with insider terms or hard to read for other reasons are as bad for democracy as hiding the information from the public altogether.

What's Inside?

The LFC and LESC style manuals are fraternal twins. Both are broken into three topics:

  1. General rules for good writing and quick guides to sentence and paragraph structure;

  2. Required formatting for graphs and tables and the brand guide on fonts, colors, and logos;

  3. Reference guide, organized like a dictionary, on specific word and punctuation use.

The manual specifies staff should turn to the Merriam-Webster (m-w.com) online dictionary and then Chicago Manual of Style if they can't find in the organization manual.

It’s also important to note the manual is updated regularly and every user is invited to suggest changes. Language evolves, sometimes rapidly. Two words become hyphenated, then one word without a hyphen. Meanings shift. Nouns become acceptable verbs. To keep from sounding dated and archaic, to adjust to changes in governance, the style manual evolves as well.

General Rules for Good Writing

The first topic is a guide on good writing, with general rules adapted by Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, a very brief book you should look at it if you have time, even if you’ve read it before. That’s followed by quick guides on sentences and paragraphs, building blocks of any document. These are worth a review now and and then.

Rules for Formatting

The next few pages cover the “look” of documents and this is where the LFC and LESC manuals differ. A uniform look for graphics is important. It tells the reader you are organized. You pay attention to detail. Don’t be sloppy with your graphics.


These formatting pages also include the capitalization, hierarchy, and formatting rules for headings, and for LFC, the difference between heading approaches between the evaluation and fiscal analysis units


All of the guides up to this point in the manuals are set up on one page so you can print them out separately for future reference.

The last of these formatting pages is the brand guide for your organization. A brand guide establishes a common look across the publications of an organization. It sets the tone for the organization, whether it’s bright colors and fun fonts for a children’s play space or subdued colors and traditional fonts for a legislation committee. It ensures the logo looks the same everywhere it appears, that the colors, fonts, formatting all tell the reader this is a document from your organization.

Rules on Word Use and Punctuation

•General rules, such as those for commas, capitalization, abbreviations, when to use figures or words for numbers, and proper verb tense for legislation as it moves through the process;

•Specific word use, such as the standard abbreviation for the Office of Attorney General, references to race and ethnicity, spelling for certain words with acceptable alternatives, and whether healthcare is one word, two words, or hyphenated;

•Definitions of and suggested substitutes for “dead dead,” “below the line” and other jargon and insider terms;

•Guidance for commonly confused words, such as fewer and less or comprise and compare;

•Conflicts with bill-drafting style.

Often the guidance is to “avoid” a term; avoidance does not constitute a ban.

Please send some time getting familiar with the manual. You are not expected to know it cover to cover – not even the author knows it cover to cover -- but you should know how to look something up.

Common Errors

A review of policy discussions in Volume 1 of LFC’s report to the Legislature came up with a list of common errors.

  1. Compound modifiers

  2. jargon

  3. commas

  4. easily identified wordiness (many are on the Writing Well page)

  5. capitalization

  6. numbers

  7. abbreviations (please check whether there is an established abbreviation in the manual before you invent your own or use the agency’s)

  8. starting a sentence with there

  9. formatting

  10. List format

A review of LESC briefs came up with an almost identical list, as did a review of evaluation unit reports. This happens over and over, whether the review looks at LFC fiscal documents or evaluation publications, LESC documents, hearing briefs, or FIRs. All of these issues are covered in the style manual, except for “starting a sentence with there,” which is covered under Tips and Tricks, one-page explanations linked at the bottom of the training page. Tips and Tricks topics also include more detailed discussion of most of the common errors.