Style Guides

There are a lot of style guides out there, and clients from different literary, business, and academic backgrounds will use different ones.

Here, we’ve put together many of the style guides that you may come across as a proofreader. We’ve provided links where possible so you have access to these whenever you need them.

Academic Style Guides

• Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition, Chicago University Press, 2010. Available online at: https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html
• The Modern Humanities Research Association Style Guide (MHRA): http://www.mhra.org.uk/series/MSG
• The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA): https://apastyle.apa.org/
• The American Medical Association Manual of Style (AMA): https://www.amamanualofstyle.com/
• The Modern Language Association Handbook (MLA): https://style.mla.org/
• The OWL Purdue Writing Lab guides to MLA, APA and Chicago (footnote) citations: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/

Regional Style Guides

• A Dictionary of Modern English Usage by H. W. Fowler (British English).
• The Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage, by Pam Peters, Cambridge University Press, 2007.
• The Elements of Style by W. Strunk and E. B. White (American English).

Publishing, Journalism and Creative Writing Style Guides

• Inside Book Publishing, 4th edition, by Giles Clark and Angus Phillips, Routledge, 2008.
• The Associated Press (AP) Stylebook: https://www.apstylebook.com/
• New Hart’s Rules: The Handbook of Style for Writers and Editors, 2nd edition, adapted from The Oxford Guide to Style by R M Ritter, revised edition, Editor-in-chief Anne Waddingham, Oxford University Press, 2014.
• The Guardian Style Guide: https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-a

Other Style Guides

• Your House Style: Styling Your Words for Maximum Impact, 2nd edition, by Christina Thomas, Society for Editors and Proofreaders, 2014.
• The Business Style Handbook, 2nd edition, by Helen Cunningham and Brenda Greene, McGraw Hill, 2013.