Style Guides for Business Writing

Different publications have different rules for the articles they publish, but they all have one thing in common – a Style Guide. 

Style Guides may run to many tens of pages (e.g. for a book publisher), or they may be able to be summarised onto a single page (e.g. for guidelines on specific articles), but they all lay down a consistent set of rules for how disparate writers (read freelancers!) should file their copy.

I currently write for The Business Magazine, a publication based in Pangbourne, but which distributes to and is active all along the Thames Valley and right down to the South Coast.

There are a number of different types of articles, from Profile Interviews to Thematic Pieces to Business Roundtable write-ups, but all are business-themed and hence all have similarities.

So here’s a summary of some of the common requirements for business articles…once you use them consistently, it becomes second-nature, and you should find that your day-to-day writing improves as a result:

Business Style Guide

All capitalised

• VAT, HMRC
• DTI = Department of Trade and Industry
• AIM = Alternative Investment Market

Upper case

• Country; e.g. United States, or US
• County; e.g. Oxfordshire
• Company name: e.g. Shoosmiths
• Organisation/ body; e.g. Stock Exchange, Government
• Internet

Lower case

• Company description: e.g. solicitors
• Department description: e.g. commercial division
• Job description; e.g. managing director
• Function description; e.g. government spending
• Certain words: plc, web, capital gains tax, sterling, intranet, extranet, email, plc

Quotation marks

• Double for standalone speech
• Single when within another quote
• Single when in headline or pull-out quote

Numbers

• Spell out one to nine; numerical for 10 and above
• EXCEPT when using percentages; e.g. 7%
• Billion and million – write out for the first time in full, then £x b, £x m

Names

• Use the full name when referring to for the first time only; after that, surname only
• Use any titles when referring to for the first time only; e.g. Dr, Professor
• Don’t use Mr or Mrs
• Initials are placed together (unless it’s a company name when it’s written ‘as is’) e.g. AB Villiers