Astyle guide, or style manual, is a set of standards for the writing and design of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication, organization or field. The implementation of a style guide provides uniformity in style and formatting within a document and across multiple documents. A set of standards for a specific organization is often known as "house style". Style guides are common for general and specialized use, for the general reading and writing audience, and for students and scholars of various academic disciplines, medicine, journalism, the law, government, business, and industry.
Several basic style guides for technical and scientific communication have been defined by international standards organizations. These are often used as elements of and refined in more specialized style guides that are specific to a subject, region, or organization. Some examples are:
Other style guides that cover international usage:
In the United Kingdom, major publications, academic institutions and companies have their own style guides, otherwise they would normally rely on New Hart's Rules available in the New Oxford Style Manual.
In the United States, most journalistic forms of mass communication rely on styles provided in the Associated Press Stylebook (AP). Corporate publications typically follow either the AP style guide or the equally respected Chicago Manual of Style, often with entries that are additions or exceptions to the chosen style guide.
A classic grammar style guide is The Elements of Style. Together, these two books are referenced more than any other general style book for US third-person writing used across most professions.[citation needed]
