Is it "%", percent, per-cent or per cent?

Steve Nichols, editor of the "IC" ezine and MD of InfoTech Communications (www.infotechcomms.co.uk), thinks that all corporate writers should have a style guide. The guide should also be revisited on a regular basis to make sure it is still relevant and covers new innovations. It should also be rolled out across an organisation and its use carefully monitored.

Do you have a style guide for your corporate writing? If you do, do you keep it up to date? You may even ask why you need a style guide at all.

For readable and consistent intranet, web and print-based writing, you're going to need a style guide. If your organisation already has a style guide for its print publications, you can use it as a starting point and it to address online writing too. Familiarise yourself with these style Bibles to learn about different schools of thought on language.

Style is all about consistency

Do you write web site or website? Do you capitalise the "I" in internet? Is it e-mail or email? Is it five per cent, five percent, five per-cent or 5%?

If you publish two stories with different styles in each you could confuse the reader. At best they won't notice. At worst, it will look sloppy and reflect upon your professionalism, or lack of it.

In print documents, attending to style is an expected part of the publication process. But in the online world, style considerations are often overlooked in the rush to post timely content. The result is the editorial equivalent of mismatched socks or a bad hair day.

Copy is only perfect when accuracy, brevity, clarity, spelling, structure, grammar, pace and style are all taken into account.

Style can be about hierarchy

Have a look at this statement: "The Chief Executive handed over a long-service award to the head cleaner."

How should you capitalise job titles? If you are going to use upper case for job titles then you should be consistent throughout. The cleaner is as entitled to his capital letter as the CEO.

Non-professional writers tend to cap up everything. We see trips to the Golf Club, announcements about the Annual Results and staff going to Lunch.

The old army saying was if in doubt, salute it. The new style adage should be, if in doubt use lower case.

Style is about clarity

Is it better to write: "A recent Widget survey found that one in 10 employees was sick of custard for lunch" or "One in 10 employees is sick of custard for lunch, according to a recent Widget survey."

If you think the former why not write that style into the guide?

One style guide I have seen even specifies the way quotes should be laid out. That is, it feels that the person saying the quote is more important than what was actually said. So we get:

John Smith, deputy chief executive, said: "I think this company is going to the dogs."

Rather than: "I think this company is going to the dogs," said the head cleaner.

And should it be "said", "says", "commented" or "concluded"?

Either way, your style guide should be something that is revisited on a regular basis and updated to take into account new trends in journalism and new phraseology.

You also need to make sure that everyone has access to the guide and that it is actually followed. Otherwise a style guide is as good as useless