Style Sheets with Substance

with  Lucy Kenward

When: Tuesday and Wednesday, September 26 and 27, 2023, 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm PDT

Where: Online via Zoom

Style sheets set out the information writers and editors need about spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and other mechanics. They ensure a manuscript remains internally consistent and adheres to the standards of the publication. And no matter how detailed an organization’s own style guide, every document can benefit from having its own style sheet.

Using examples of style sheets for projects ranging from cookbooks to corporate publications, this workshop will teach you how to prepare a style sheet that saves time, effort, and money for everyone in the production chain. Through hands-on activities and discussion, you will:

• learn what elements are necessary for a style sheet to be truly useful for editing and, just as important, what elements should be left out;
• explore similarities and differences between the style sheets for different types of publications;
• discover various tools to compile and revise style sheets; and
• understand how to turn a series of individual project style sheets into a broader style guide for an organization.

Whether you’re an experienced editor or new to the editing world, you will come away from the workshop with tips and tools to create, maintain, and effectively use style sheets for any type of editing project.

A partner with West Coast Editorial Associates and a part-time editorial associate with Greystone Books, Lucy Kenward edits non-fiction books, educational materials, and business reports. In 2010, she won Editors Canada’s Tom Fairley Award for Editorial Excellence. Lucy also teaches proofreading in Simon Fraser University’s Editing Certificate program and clear business writing for a variety of corporate clients. For this workshop, she draws on her experience developing hundreds of style sheets and following even more of them—some incredibly helpful, others passably useful, and a few downright confusing or lacking in information. She finds style sheets to be one of the most underrated yet valuable tools in the editing toolbox.