Stop that semicolon: Corporate style guidelines ensure consistent communications
Does your company capitalize department names or titles? Does it place a comma before the final item in a series? If you don’t know, chances are you and your colleagues are producing inconsistent business communications.
A corporate style guide provides organizations with a single reference for writing and design standards. Employees should comply with the standards, whether they are preparing an internal memo or a capabilities brochure for customers. A consistent and coherent message enhances a company’s professional image and reinforces its brand.
Style guide content varies from company to company, but generally covers such topics as grammar, punctuation, spelling and voice related to writing. For example, a company might tell employees to keep sentence structure simple and try to limit most sentences to one clause. Another firm may prefer that all written correspondence be in active, rather than passive, voice.
A style guide also promotes visual consistency by providing design rules for written communications. Categories may include layout, typography, corporate colors and logo usage. For example, a company may require uniform margins, consistent placement of quotes and paragraph indentations.
Distribute the guide to all employees within the organization and ensure that each adheres to the same standards. It’s a good idea to overhaul the style guide periodically as the company evolves.
Even if you don’t have a formal manual, make life easier for your colleagues by posting company style for questions that come up time and again when generating documents. Reference materials such as “The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual,” “The Chicago Manual of Style” and “The Elements of Style” will help put you on the right track.
In the case of corporate communications, being in style doesn’t mean wearing the latest fashions. Fashions come and go, but consistent, professional documents and marketing collateral will always be relevant.
