Technical writing: what is the point of style guides?

[Laura]

APA, MLA, Chicago—I'm used to those. But company style guides are a whole different beast. We had to analyze one for a project and it was 200 pages of rules about things I've never thought about. When to capitalize job titles. Whether to use "click" or "tap" or "select." How to write numbers (spell out under 10, numerals over 10 unless it's measurements). And the worst part? Different companies have DIFFERENT RULES. So nothing is universal. My professor says it's about consistency, not correctness. Users don't care which way you do it as long as you do it the same way every time. That makes sense intellectually but memorizing arbitrary rules for a fake company project is making my brain melt. Anyone else find this part soul-crushing or is it just me?

 

[PeterCrow]

Laura, your professor is absolutely right about consistency vs correctness, and I say this as someone who wanted to throw my style guide out the window every single day of my internship. Here's the thing—users build mental models as they use products. If you say "click" in one place and "select" in another, they have to pause and wonder if those are different actions. If you write "5" in one spot and "five" in another, it feels sloppy even if they don't consciously notice why. The rules feel arbitrary because they ARE arbitrary. The point isn't that one way is right—it's that having ONE way reduces cognitive load for users. That said, memorizing 200 pages of fake company rules for a class project IS brutal. My advice? Focus on the categories of rules rather than the specific rules. Once you understand WHAT kinds of things style guides cover (tone, formatting, terminology, etc), you can adapt to any company's specific choices. It's like learning grammar for a new language—the categories transfer even if the specifics don't.