Which style guide is best?
Editing style for consistency
[An earlier version of this article was published in February 2024.]
The Short Story
Points of style are mostly a matter of druthers—that is, preference. No ancient editorial law mandates that you choose a style guide. Nor must you follow a given style manual on every point, unless you’re beholden to an overly zealous client or publisher (in which case, it may be time to rethink that relationship). Yet free will is no license for chaos. Be deliberate about your style choices (and guides), and apply each style decision consistently in relevant situations. Some style guides are geared toward particular genres or audiences. I’m partial to Chicago Manual of Style for general purposes because I find that its reasoning and tendencies align closely with mine. The ability to provide your rationale for style decisions, and grounding that reasoning in what’s best for the intended readers, will carry you far in your editorial journey.
The Real(ist) Story
AP or APA? Chicago or MLA? What about publishers’ house rules, niche guides like the Christian Writer’s Manual of Style, and individual authors’ stylistic quirks? To champions of the rule of law, the realm of style may seem like madness. What’s the right way to do things, editorially speaking?
The sage answer: whichever way you can best defend (within the scope of any firm rules from a publisher or client). At the end of the day, the path forward may come down to your individual aesthetic preferences, because editing is more an art than a science.
This is why consistency is tougher to achieve than you might think. Many a well-intentioned writer has taken an equally well-intentioned teacher’s stylistic “rule” in hand like an oversized, double-headed axe and proceeded to lay indiscriminate waste to the countryside. Written language is complex. Grammatical situations, the battlefield scenarios of the editorial world, may appear similar at a glance yet differ subtly. The more you learn by study, practice, and reading, the more refined your systematic and intuitive understanding of grammatical tactics. That helps you make deliberate choices when editorial principles like accuracy, clarity, consistency, consideration of audience, and purpose butt heads.
Truth isn’t relative, but editorial decisions aren’t often a matter of truth. Sometimes there’s clearly a better or best way, and sometimes there isn’t. Different folk can reasonably, justifiably arrive at differing editorial decisions. What matters most is that you’ve thought about the choice you’ve made—and that you considered the reader in your judgment.
For my part, I take an organic approach to style preferences. I don’t swear entirely by any of the style guides. MLA, traditionally, is associated with English classes and literary studies, while APA reigns in the domain of the social sciences. Journalism is a bastion of Associated Press (AP) style. But the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) guidelines usually make sense to me as someone who edits and writes more narrative, less technical nonfiction and fiction. Their latest edition, in fact, made some updates that bring it more into line with my preferences, like capitalizing lengthy prepositions in title case and doing away with city of publication in source citations. I try not to let such things go to my head, but to be sure, they keep CMOS in my good graces.
Story Time
As an example, I’ll go for the low-hanging fruit: the Oxford (serial) comma beloved by many a book editor and spurned by many an AP-wielding journalist.
After all, they weren’t just any Waveborne. Their blood, blades, and souls belonged to the eternal empress. They were Southrons. (”Southrons,” Delfii’s Song, Snippet 0)
The serial comma is the one between blades and and souls. Here’s the paragraph without that final comma:
After all, they weren’t just any Waveborne. Their blood, blades and souls belonged to the eternal empress. They were Southrons.
Is the Oxford comma worth an editorial civil war? Probably not. If there were such a conflict, would I be the last, axe-swinging Viking to deny the enemy that comma? Maybe, if I got a good night’s rest first. But I have my reasons for preferring the Oxford comma.
For instance, would a “warrior, a rogue and a barbarian” mean “a warrior who is also a rogue and a barbarian” or “a warrior and a rogue and a barbarian”? Such ambiguity is the stuff of editorial nightmares.
“Very well,” you may concede. “Why not use the serial comma only when crucial for clarity?” Because inconsistency risks distracting the reader—and that’s why we edit style for consistency, y’all.
Godspeed and happy rewriting!