While many of the rules taught in a good proofreading course apply universally, it is important to be aware that each organisation will have its own clear ideas about how copy should be formatted and presented.

‘House style’ is a term you’re probably familiar with. This is the organisation-specific blueprint that you will be expected to follow each time you work on a piece of copy.

Given that the rules of grammar are fixed and punctuation marks never change, you might question how house style can differ between organisations.

However, house style can indeed contain pitfalls for the unwary. Things to watch for include:

  • words legitimately spelt two ways: ‘judgement’ and ‘judgment’ for example (especially important in a legal context)
  • the use of quotation marks: some organisations use ‘single quote marks’ for everything; others might use “double quote marks” for speech and ‘single quote marks’ for emphasis
  • en (–) and em (—) dashes: these crop up within text for lots of reasons and aren’t always easily distinguishable
  • punctuation in bullet-point or numbered lists: some organisations might want semi-colons between points with a full stop after the last one, or they may not punctuate lists at all
  • things like these can be the difference between an acceptable and unacceptable piece of copy.

So, when you start working for a new company, either as an employee or freelancer, make sure you ask about their style guide. They might have a dog-eared hard copy lying around in the office, a PDF to download, or an online copy available on their intranet.

Keep it to hand as you work and double check anything you’re unsure of. Even if some of their rules seem ‘wrong’ to you, just remember that they’re paying you to make sure all copy adheres to their house style.

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