← Back Published on 25th June 2023

6 Tips for Staying in Style (Guides)

You’ve crossed your Ts, dotted your Is, and created your in-house style guide. Now what?

Creating a style guide from scratch can be a huge effort: you’re setting the stage for your content’s voice, tone, and structure for years to come. Have a question about terminology, organization, grammar, best practices, or standards? The style guide may be your go-to answer for all of the above.

But as your style, content, and audience evolve, so should your style. That’s why it’s important to make sure that you’re maintaining your style guide. (Or, as Taylor Swift would say, making sure that you’re never going out of style. 🕶️)

So how can you make sure that your style guide is still helpful and relevant? Here are some quick tips:

1. Jot down questions.

As writers and editors, we know that every word counts. I can think of a number of times when phrases and words like “log in,” “sign in,” “my,” “your,” and even “hello” led to lengthy conversations about usability, localization, and consistency.

Since every word counts, you’ll probably encounter niche questions at some point. For example:

When do we hyphenate this term? When do we not?
Is this word okay to use based on marketing guidance? If not, what alternatives are okay?
How do we refer to other organizations when writing integration documentation? What should we avoid?
How much emphasis is too much emphasis?

Even if you think you know the answer, jot down the question. If a writer or editor has a style question, it may be a sign that a section of your style guide needs updates. Jotting down questions (even questions that come up during casual chats) can help you remember the “why” behind your research when you update the style guide.

💡 You can also create your own style research document to keep track of these questions and then return with research from various industry sources. I’ve started doing this and categorizing questions by areas such as UX writing, technical writing, accessibility, localization, and more. It's been a great resource for documenting questions and allowing our editing team to contribute their own research.

2. Set aside time for routine updates.

When you’re getting into the swing of day-to-day reviews, it can be hard to remember to take a step back and update your style guide and writing resources. However, if you don’t take the time to do this, you risk having outdated information. Sometimes it’s something as small as providing an updated example based on current content or updated links to external resources. The small details matter.

Don’t just update your style guide when a question, issue, or discovery arises. Instead, set aside time for routine updates. These routine updates could be weekly, monthly, quarterly... whatever works for you. Regardless of your chosen time frame, setting aside that time can make a big difference.

3. Consider reorganizing.

In technical writing, we know that document organization plays a huge role in creating useful content. The same is true of internal documentation, including style guides. Reorganizing your style guide may be helpful if your teams have grown, if more teams are using your style guide, or if your style has evolved significantly.

I’ve updated style guides by moving information into new sections, creating separate documents, combining information, and more. I’ve also looked into new methods of organization, such as organizing standards by relevant content, alphabetical order, importance, and more. Remember to consider your internal customers, too! Anyone who uses your style guides deserves a good user experience. 🤓

4. Consider expanding.

On that note, think about the ways you can expand your style guide, too. What may start as a list of terms and basic grammar conventions can turn into a document with:

Best practices
Situational examples
Use cases
Links to external resources
Explanations behind the “why” of style choices

💡 Even if these details don’t make it into your style guide, they could be helpful elsewhere. For example, you could create checklists, UX writing lookbooks, user profiles, and more. Don’t be afraid to think big beyond placing a comma here and a period there.

5. Provide updated examples.

This one’s pretty self-explanatory: Make sure that your examples are up to date. Writers and editors may look for existing examples in your style guide to help write new content, so it’s important to provide a good frame of reference.

6. Keep learning.

Never stop learning! One of my favorite things about editing is finding all the cool new writing resources out there. Many of these resources can help writers and editors look at content in new ways. If you find resources that are allowed in your organization, share them with your team! Better yet, link them in your style guide to provide quick and easy access to cool tools.

For example, here are just a few of my favorite writing resources:

You could also include links to great public style guides, such as:

As long as you’ve clearly defined your internal style, external style guides like these can be helpful for additional inspiration.

Style guides are great resources for establishing a clear and consistent voice in your content. However, it’s important to remember that they are living documents that need to be maintained as your style evolves. Following these tips can be a good place to start to make sure that you never go out of style. ✨