9. Style Guides
When to Use Which Style Guide¶
| Style Guide | When to Use |
|---|---|
| The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) | most common style guide, many other style guides reference back to it, used in publishing, academic books, and journals |
| The Associated Press Stylebook (AP) | used by journalists and other news and media writers |
| Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers Style Manual (IEEE) | used in engineering and computer science |
| The American Medical Association Manual of Style (AMA) | used in nursing and other medical fields |
| The Association for Computing Machinery Style Guide (ACM) | used in computing and information technology fields |
| The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) | used in mechanical engineering |
| Modern Language Association (MLA) | the "college predecessor" to Chicago, used in academic writing in humanities and literary fields |
| American Psychological Association (APA) | the "college predecessor" to AP, used in academic writing in the education, psychology, and science fields |
| Turabian | a brief, student version of Chicago, used in academic writing in business, history, and fine arts fields |
Style Guide Treatment of Numbers¶
| Style Guide | Treatment of Numbers |
|---|---|
| The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) | spell out whole/round/simple numbers (two hundred) use numerals for complex numbers (223) |
| The Associated Press Stylebook (AP) | spell out numbers one through nine (one, two, three . . . nine) use numerals for numbers 10 and greater (10, 11, 12 . . .) |
| Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers Style Manual (IEEE) | n/a |
| The American Medical Association Manual of Style (AMA) | use numerals for all numbers (1, 2, 3 . . .) use a space between the number and unit and don't use a period (16 mg) no commas in longer numbers (1600, 23000) |
| The Association for Computing Machinery Style Guide (ACM) | n/a |
| The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) | n/a |
| Modern Language Association (MLA) | same as Chicago |
| American Psychological Association (APA) | same as AP |
| Turabian | same as Chicago |