Grammar Girl here.

Today's topic is style guides.

It's true that when it comes to grammar, there are a lot of hard and fast rules, but it's

also true that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of issues that are dictated by style.

I know it would be much easier if the rules were just black and white and I could always

just tell you what to do.

I like to tell people what to do, but in a lot of cases, you're just going to have to

decide on your own.

Here's an example.

There's an email list for writers that I subscribe to where people are practically

in a flame war right now about whether there should be one or two spaces after the period

at the end of a sentence.

These people are surprisingly militant about spaces.

Honestly, it kind of scares me, but regardless of what you think about the issue, the bottom

line is that it's enough of an unresolved point that it's a matter of style.

You should just find out what the style is with the people you're writing for and do

it the way they want you to.

So back to the topic, what's a style guide?

A style guide is a document that's typically put together by editors, managers, or producers

to define how they want their writers to handle all the unresolved writing and grammar problems

that arise and believe me, they do arise on an almost hourly basis.

It can include almost anything the creator wants it to, but a style guide typically covers

...