Episode 87
BATTLE for the Best Style Guide!
Join hosts Chris and Gena in this thought-provoking episode as they engage in a lively discussion about the best style guide for writing. They look at MLA, Chicago, AP, APA formats and more, shedding light on their respective applications in different disciplines. Tune in to this episode to gain a deeper understanding of these formats and discover which style guide might be the best fit for your own writing endeavors. Who will win? YOU if you listen!
LINKS:
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Transcript
Hey, welcome to the Writing Momentum Podcast.
Speaker:I'm Christopher Maselli.
Speaker:This is Gena Maselli.
Speaker:How's it going, Gena?
Speaker:It's going well.
Speaker:You know what's gonna happen today?
Speaker:I think so.
Speaker:It's a battle.
Speaker:We're having a battle today.
Speaker:It's a battle of all battles for the best style guide to use when writing.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So we need to probably ask what in the world is a style guide?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:A lot of times we talk about how you need to format your work.
Speaker:You need to format it in a certain way.
Speaker:When you submit it, you need to make sure that you're formatting it correctly.
Speaker:Style guides are those formats.
Speaker:They are the templates that are expected when you submit your work, depending
Speaker:on what kind of work you're submitting, when you submit it to editors or if
Speaker:you're writing for a certain field.
Speaker:These are the rules for writing for that field.
Speaker:Yeah, and I think most of us as writers don't even think about
Speaker:the fact that there might be a style guide for what we do, right?
Speaker:We're so used to saying, okay, I know I need to write about this or that,
Speaker:and so we just start writing and we try to make it to where it's written well,
Speaker:and we're not really thinking about the fact that there's actually guided
Speaker:ways, to write the things that we're writing as far as the way that we display
Speaker:things, especially like citations and end notes and those kind of things.
Speaker:And it just, it depends on who you're writing for as to
Speaker:the way you need to write.
Speaker:So we're gonna have a battle here to talk about we think are some of the best ones.
Speaker:And when really when you're going to use each kind.
Speaker:And I think I wanna preface this by saying, The first few we're gonna talk
Speaker:about here is gonna sound a little dry, like you might be thinking, yeah, I
Speaker:don't think I ever want to use those, but we're gonna talk about what our favorite
Speaker:way to write is and probably what you need to consider more than anything else
Speaker:when it comes to creating your piece and having it have a certain style.
Speaker:And I wanna preface this by saying that just because you have quality
Speaker:content, that does not mean that style guides and things like this and
Speaker:formatting just go out the window.
Speaker:I think we sometimes hear from writers.
Speaker:And have worked with writers who have that attitude that says, my material
Speaker:or my insight or my writing is so good that it really doesn't matter
Speaker:how I submit it because what I am saying is going to shine through.
Speaker:And the truth is that's just not true.
Speaker:A lot of times, especially if you're writing for editors who
Speaker:are receiving a lot of material.
Speaker:They will be looking for those people who can just follow the directions.
Speaker:And especially when it comes to more technical pieces, if you're writing for
Speaker:certain historical journals or social sciences, psychology, something like that.
Speaker:You really want to be able to follow guidelines so that you
Speaker:make it easier on those editors.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:And it's not like it's hard to do.
Speaker:These are guidelines, so you can find all of them on the internet.
Speaker:You can find out what the guides are.
Speaker:We'll talk about that a little bit, where yeah, where you go to find those.
Speaker:But should we jump right into it?
Speaker:Let's jump in.
Speaker:All right, so the first one, now, some of these you're gonna have heard of
Speaker:when you were in high school or college.
Speaker:The first one is MLA, that's the Modern Language Association.
Speaker:They have a certain format, and you'll generally see these on very
Speaker:formal papers in colleges, these are used in humanities and it really
Speaker:focuses on citing sources, doesn't it?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And I'm using it, I teach a writing class for high school homeschool students.
Speaker:And I have them use MLA.
Speaker:And so there's a certain way that the header needs to look where their
Speaker:name needs to be on the page, the way their citations need to work, the way
Speaker:that their work cited needs to look.
Speaker:All of that goes into this.
Speaker:Yeah, I think that's probably the most common for like
Speaker:colleges and that sort of thing.
Speaker:As far as what you generally see will be asked for.
Speaker:I think it depends on the major.
Speaker:It's an overgeneralization.
Speaker:It's probably a little bit of an overgeneralization.
Speaker:Because I'm hearing that, I'm hearing more and more that MLA is being used a lot in
Speaker:high school, but of course that depends.
Speaker:If you're writing for one of your sciences, they'll
Speaker:probably use something else.
Speaker:And then in college, I'm actually hearing more about some other types
Speaker:that, that we're gonna get to.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So another one is Chicago.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Chicago, it's a format, not just a city.
Speaker:This is often seen in books.
Speaker:So we've written with a lot of publishing houses that they, they
Speaker:might use a different format for their regular articles and that sort
Speaker:of thing, but when it comes to their books, they say we want it in Chicago.
Speaker:And this is generally a format that's used for history, literature, social
Speaker:sciences, and it puts footnotes and endnotes in the books a lot, which I
Speaker:think is why they like it in books.
Speaker:'cause then they can have all those citations just at the end of
Speaker:chapters or at the end of the book
Speaker:altogether.
Speaker:Now let me ask you, 'cause I don't know that I can answer this, but does
Speaker:Chicago does not use inline citation?
Speaker:I wouldn't, you know that again, maybe an overgeneralization to say that.
Speaker:I would say it majors on Endnotes and.
Speaker:I think it does too.
Speaker:I don't know that I've ever seen chicago have that inline citations like MLA
Speaker:or I think MLA does some, possibly.
Speaker:But APA definitely does.
Speaker:So anyway, we'll get to some more.
Speaker:So that's just, those are some things to check on.
Speaker:How do you source your sources.
Speaker:So that's what's important to figure that out depending on
Speaker:which of these that you're using.
Speaker:So the next one we're gonna talk about is Turabian.
Speaker:Turabian.
Speaker:I had never heard of Turabian until I was in a master's level business
Speaker:class and all of a sudden the professor said, I want your paper in Turabian.
Speaker:And I had to go buy the book.
Speaker:Go on Google, what is Turabian?
Speaker:This was pre-internet searches.
Speaker:So this was me going and buying the book and looking at how to cite my
Speaker:sources and how to put it all together.
Speaker:And so yes Turabian is very academic and you see it usually in
Speaker:history, theology, social sciences.
Speaker:It is a lot like Chicago, but a bit simplified.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So if they ask for that, you can look up that.
Speaker:I always like the simpler stuff, so I would probably like this over Chicago.
Speaker:But anyway, yeah, so Turabian, and then the next one you already mentioned,
Speaker:which is APA, which stands for?
Speaker:American Psychological Association.
Speaker:Now this is for social sciences, for psychology, education will use this one,
Speaker:and this does use the in text citations.
Speaker:So what that means is that if you're quoting a source in your text,
Speaker:you're gonna have some quote, not quotation marks, but you're gonna
Speaker:have some brackets or you're gonna have some what am I thinking of?
Speaker:Parentheses.
Speaker:Parentheses, thank you.
Speaker:Parentheses.
Speaker:And then you're going to list probably the person's last name,
Speaker:the page number, that kind of thing.
Speaker:But again, that inline citation does change a little bit depending
Speaker:on which style guide you're using.
Speaker:So definitely check it out and get the details.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So if you're like me already at this point in the podcast, your eyes
Speaker:are glazing over and you're going, okay, wait, MLA, Chicago, Turabian,
Speaker:APA, how do I learn all these?
Speaker:Here's the good thing.
Speaker:For the most part, you don't need to learn them, you just need to learn
Speaker:how to find out how to write in that style, because the style is usually
Speaker:something that can be achieved through a template or through an online generator.
Speaker:So back when I was in school, we didn't have online generators.
Speaker:We had to go into the books that were created for these things and
Speaker:figure out how they cited their sources, and then we'd have to
Speaker:recreate that with our new source.
Speaker:Nowadays you could just go online, plug in your material, and it
Speaker:spits out to you exactly how it should read, based on the format.
Speaker:And yeah, don't feel like you have to memorize this stuff,
Speaker:just be aware that these exist.
Speaker:So that when you write for a certain journal or a certain academic setting
Speaker:or theological or social studies literature, that you're able to choose
Speaker:the right format based on what they're looking for and write in that format.
Speaker:Or if they bring up something about it you at least have a frame of reference
Speaker:for what they're talking about.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So those are all the formal versions, right?
Speaker:And in complete honesty.
Speaker:I hardly ever use any of those.
Speaker:I will use Chicago sometimes if I'm working on a book for a company
Speaker:or something like that, but for the most part, these are rarely
Speaker:used in my field, which is what a lot of you were in also, right?
Speaker:You're a general freelance writer or you're a novelist, but there are
Speaker:still things to be considerate of.
Speaker:And so this is where we get to the more informal ways.
Speaker:And one of those that's probably the most popular is the Associated Press.
Speaker:They have a thing called the AP Style book.
Speaker:And I remember back in the day when we actually received it, an actual style
Speaker:book every year it was a couple hundred pages and I'd get it on my desk and you'd
Speaker:see what changes were made for the year.
Speaker:And it's really great because it's, and it's used like in magazines
Speaker:and for journalism but it goes into things like grammar and punctuation
Speaker:and like for instance, let's say you're, you write a sentence like
Speaker:there were 10 people at the party.
Speaker:Simple enough, but do you use the letters t e n for 10, or do
Speaker:you use the numbers one Zero?
Speaker:What's correct?
Speaker:Who's to say?
Speaker:The AP style book, the Associated Press, they say, and this is what's
Speaker:generally used in newspapers.
Speaker:In fact, it's pretty much all that's used in newspapers.
Speaker:But most magazines have also adopted this style of writing,
Speaker:which means it also flows into even just a lot of writing in general.
Speaker:So I use this in my fiction, even when I'm writing.
Speaker:I use AP style.
Speaker:I kind of bounce between AP and Chicago.
Speaker:But I will tell you, when I have a question, I will type it in
Speaker:according to AP when do I use this?
Speaker:Do I capitalize this?
Speaker:Do I abbreviate this?
Speaker:And because it will, and I love it because then I also use a
Speaker:lot of this when I'm editing.
Speaker:If I'm editing books for people I will use this because I will look things up.
Speaker:Sometimes things will catch me, and I'll think, you know what?
Speaker:I don't really know if that should be capitalized or not capitalized
Speaker:or abbreviated, or written out.
Speaker:And so I'll look it up.
Speaker:I'll look up, according to Chicago, when do I use this?, according
Speaker:to AP, when do I use this?
Speaker:And that helps me find the answers and so that I can produce a more
Speaker:polished piece for my client.
Speaker:Yes, APstylebook.com.
Speaker:That's Associated press style book.
Speaker:Apstylebook.com is a free website and you can go in there, get your own account,
Speaker:and then you can type in questions like, how do I abbreviate Hawaii?
Speaker:What's correct in what situation?
Speaker:And it'll let you know how to do it.
Speaker:And so really handy.
Speaker:That will help you really get an edge.
Speaker:And if you are listening to Chris ask that question and you think that's ridiculous
Speaker:because it's, HI, it's the postal code.
Speaker:You would be wrong, it is something different.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:And that's, and I encourage you, go to apstylebook.com, see if you
Speaker:can figure out what it should be.
Speaker:There's your homework challenge for today.
Speaker:All that said, so that, so probably in our battle, I would give the winner
Speaker:to the AP style book in, in general.
Speaker:I think Chicago's a closed second.
Speaker:It depends.
Speaker:It depends on what you're writing for.
Speaker:But all of that said, there is one thing that trumps the AP style book,
Speaker:and that is the writer's guidelines for whatever you're writing for.
Speaker:So almost every magazine has on their website what their writer's guidelines
Speaker:are, what the guidelines are that they want you to follow, and they will tell
Speaker:you in there what sort of style guide to use and anything in particular
Speaker:that they want you to keep track of.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:How they want your name to appear on the page.
Speaker:What kind of fonts they want you to use, and usually.
Speaker:When you are writing usually they're going to want either Times New
Speaker:Roman or one of the more common fonts that are accepted today.
Speaker:But I would go with Times.
Speaker:If there's, if you're ever in doubt, go with Times New Roman.
Speaker:No it is not the standard right now for Word.
Speaker:Go ahead and do a command a or a control alt, highlight that whole document and
Speaker:turn it into Times New Roman 12 point font and one inch margins on the side.
Speaker:This is all a holdover over from typewriter days, but it
Speaker:became the standard back then.
Speaker:One inch margins, 12 point font, and it's still the standard now,
Speaker:so you might as well stick to it.
Speaker:So Associated Press, that could be trumped by writer's guidelines.
Speaker:And overall, if you ever have any questions, if you just don't
Speaker:know, the magazine doesn't say, you just can't figure it out.
Speaker:Go back to Times New Roman, 12 point font, one inch margins.
Speaker:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Alright.
Speaker:So pretty good battle.
Speaker:That's very interesting.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:This is just the details that kind of bring everything together.
Speaker:It gives you an industry standard and if you turn something in holding
Speaker:to these standards, then you just look like you're more prepared
Speaker:and more a aware of the industry.
Speaker:You're more of a professional.
Speaker:It's an easy way to earn some points there with an editor.
Speaker:Cool topic.
Speaker:All right hey, if you have learned something today, please
Speaker:write and let us know that.
Speaker:Rate the episode, review it, subscribe, share with someone else who might
Speaker:know or not know or need to know.
Speaker:And please let us know.
Speaker:Hey, put in the comments.
Speaker:What is your favorite format?
Speaker:Did we miss one?
Speaker:Did we miss a certain style guide?
Speaker:Let us know that too.
Speaker:We'd love to hear from you.
Speaker:And the reason we talk about all this stuff is because
Speaker:it's very hard going it alone.
Speaker:It's a lot easier when we do it together because Gena together what?
Speaker:We have, writing momentum.
Speaker:Bye-bye.
