Back to: Academic and Professional Writing Unit 1
What are the three most widely used style guides for writing?
Styles guide is a document for writing, editing, and designing content. It helps to maintain consistency of font, style, colour, tone of voice throughout the writing. Style guide sets standard of grammar, punctuation, spelling, syntax and wording. It provides rules to writers so that there is consistency and clarity in writing. There are many types of style guides for writing but the three most common and popular are: Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS), Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA), and Modern Language Association’s MLA Style Manual.
Types of Style Guides used in Writing
Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS)
The Chicago style guide or the CMOS has been published annually by the University of Chicago Press since 1906, and with the Chicago Manual of Style Online since2006. CMOS is one of the most widely used style guides universally. CMOS helps with the writing style in academic and commercial publishing. It provides instructionsfor grammar, spelling, and punctuation, along with guidelines for formatting manuscripts and two varieties of source citation formats. This writing style is popular for literary publishing for both fiction and non-fiction and in humanities academia. The most latest edition was published in 2017, with a new edition released every seven years. Chicago style guide has published 17 editions since the year it started.
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA)
The APA style guide also known as the “Publication Manual, began in 1929 by a group of psychologists, anthropologists, and business managers. It’s first official publication as a style guide was in 1952, and there have been seven more editionssince then, including an online blog since 2009. APA style is suitable for scientific disciplines to make the content easier to understand. It provides guidelines for spelling, punctuation, and grammar, as well as how to use the signature in-text citation style, ethical standard for publication of research, formatting of academic paper. APA style is used by writers in social sciences, humanities, health care, andfew of natural sciences. The most recent edition of the APA style guide was published in 2019 and an updated edition follows after every ten years.
Modern Language Association’s MLA Style Manual
The Modern Language Association of America published its “MLA Style Sheet” for the first time in 1951. It has been releasing an updated MLA handbook since 1977 and its contents online with the MLA style centre website since 2009. MLA style book is used commonly for its source citation templates and formatting. MLA style is opted by writers focused on the mechanics of language and writing, such as languagestudies and literary theory. The newest edition was released in 2016 having publishedeight editions till date. MLA style’s latest edition is revised about every three to five years.
