Writing Styles

As a Technical Writer/Editor, Creative Writer, and even a Copy Writer/Editor I have been asked to write to the following styles. Some of the styles are easy to follow and others… well, let’s just go with some are easier to use vs. others.

APA - writing style and format for academic documents such as scholarly journal articles and books

AP – Associated Press – yes how it is written for the news

MLA - Modern Language Association is mostly used in the academic world

Chicago - beloved by writers, editors, and publishers. It’s the standard for book publishing in fiction and nonfiction and is often used in the arts and humanities for academic papers

Expository or Argumentative Style - writes in an expository style, all they are trying to do is explain a concept, imparting information from themselves to a wider audience

 Descriptive Style - Is in a descriptive style, they are painting a picture in words of a person, place, or thing for their audience Persuasive Style - writes in a persuasive style, they are trying to convince the audience of a position or belief Narrative Style - writes in a narrative style, they are not just trying to impart information, they are trying to construct and communicate a story, complete with characters, conflict, and settings

Mil-Std – Military Standard

MIL-STD-38784A, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE STANDARD PRACTICE FOR MANUALS, TECHNICAL: GENERAL STYLE AND FORMAT REQUIREMENTS (25 AUG 2011)., This standard covers the general style and format requirements for the preparation of standard Technical Manuals (TM) and changes thereto intended for military applications. This includes all technical documents assigned a TM an identification number and controlled by a TM management information system, or subject to requisition from an inventory control point. This standard provides for Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) Document Type Definition (DTD) usage (see Appendices B through E) required for electronic data delivery, including PDF. This standard supplement the performance of detail specifications used for specific TM types and related publications, but does not deliver any technical data. Unless specified otherwise herein, the examples at the end of this standard are typical and may be adapted to fit the specific equipment or situation being covered. All appendices are intended for compliance when applicable.

And this is the easy one…you know it is.  All the others are difficult after writing compared to ALL the RULES laid out in this type of style guide. 😉

Laters (this is not allowed/addressed in the above mil-std)