Wikipedia:Identifying and using style guides: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 02:50, 7 July 2018

Revision as of 02:51, 7 July 2018

Line 11:

== Government manuals ==

Style guides issued by government agencies/ministries are usually specific to that particular legal entity. There are exceptions, intended to normalize style across an entire government, with highly variable success rates; examples includinginclude the ''[[US Government Printing Office]] Style Manual'' (''GPO Manual'' for short, on which most American government department manuals are actually closely based); the UK ''Guidance for Governmental Digital Publishing and Services'' (for British government websites; too new to assess); and the Australian government's ''Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers'' (last updated in 2002 and widely ignored). There are also some [[International English|international or world English]] manuals for specific organizational purposes, e.g. UN directorates.

Governmental style guides determine (or attempt to determine) [[wikt:bureaucratese|bureacratese/governmentese/militarese]] – regulatory language. They also exert some effects on national legal style (a field with its own manuals), and business writing to an extent (which also draws heavily on journalism/marketing style, of course). And that's about it. No English class is going to recommend the ''GPO Style Manual'' to its students, for example; nor are these works relied upon by book, news, or academic publishers, except for limited, specialized purposes. Governmentese is a quirky style, full of excessive capitalization and a hatred of hyphens, commas, and much other punctuation.