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House Style

Does your company have a house style for all your websites and marketing materials?

If you're a big company then I'll be surprised if you haven't, however, it is equally (if not more) important if you're a smaller company.

A large company has its size, and usually its history, to fall back on should anyone query little mistakes or inconsistencies in their marketing materials or websites, but a small company has nothing.

There are so many companies nowadays, that you can't afford to make a single mistake, no matter small.

A house style guide is also especially useful in companies where you have many different people working on different parts of the same project.

The way you write depends on your medium, for example, on the web you might wish to write less formally than if you were writing an article on medical devices, you need your material to read well to the people who are reading your work.

Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.

William Butler Yeats

For example, here at Eviser (pre-style guide days) there was an inconsistent use of the word website or web site or Web Site. Which is the correct one? Well having looked around the Web and in/on various dictionaries, I found that actually all 3 are correct! The term was originally 'World Wide Web Site', but as with other words in popular use in the English language, the term has evolved into what nowadays is generally called simply 'website'.

As the word 'website' can have several correct variations, so to do other modern technological words such as ecommerce (Ecommerce, E-commerce) and email (Email, E-mail), I believe that it's all down to personal preference, as long as whatever you decide is stuck to by everyone involved.

Evolution of words is natural in the English language as our whole language is a mixture of languages taken from the many invasions of our shores in the past. From the Vikings to the Normans, each have altered our language and made it into the beautiful form it's in now, to halt the evolution of our language would to be to turn our backs on what makes it special in the first place. English is the only language in the world in which you can trace the history of the country simply be looking at the words used.

Along with spelling there are other things people can disagree on, such as grammar and headings.

You may not think it, but things such as serial commas* can be a source of irritation to many people, but equally irritates people when they're not included.

I know that I personally use too many commas, I use them to control the way people read the text, and commas slow people down when you want them to.

*Serial commas, also know as Oxford commas and Harvard commas, are the commas sometimes used immediately before a grammatical conjunction, generally and or or. E.g. small, medium, and large.

When it comes to headings, do you write;

Eviser Is An Excellent Web Management Company

Eviser is an Excellent Web Management Company

I've flirted with with both styles in my time, eventually settling with the lowercase letters on words that are 2/3 letters longs. Once again, this is personal preference, and a style guide ensures that all involved people follow the same rule.

If you want a ready-made style guide, then you can't really go wrong with The Guardian's Style Guide. This is one of the most comprehensive guides that I know of, and is free to use. Whether you stick to these rules completely or pick and choose which you use is entirely up to your preferred style.

This is one situation when people NOT commenting is a good thing. People don't notice when things are right, only when they're not, so if people can read through your material and only comment on the writing, not nit-picking over the tiny details, then you are on to something good.

If you wish to contact me about this article, to talk about your own style guides or generally talk about the English language, then please email me at markcampbell@eviser.co.uk

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House Style

Eviser Is An Excellent Web Management Company

Eviser is an Excellent Web Management Company

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