The Wemsday Style Guide

This style guide is designed to support language teachers who write their own classroom materials or materials writers who work with publishers. It's a quick-check reference guide that clarifies publishing terms and expectations for the writer. It also deals with grey areas of language use such as when semi-colons or colons are to be used, spelling rules related to American or British English or citing sources. It also covers areas such as publishing and design protocols such as use of headings, when to italicise certain words or phrases, or abbreviations used in publishing.

The guide is for two types of writers: Professional full-time materials writers who are probably familiar with using style guides from publishers but would like more support. And also, for the many teachers creating their own in-house materials for their school, college or university. Maybe they even want to self-publish their materials. This style guide for these contexts is invaluable to flag any language issues you may not have considered before writing such as will I use an en-dash or an em-dash? Will I capitalise and punctuate bullet points? How will I organise the exercise numbering in a set of lesson materials?

This style guide was developed by Wemsday Publishing (the publisher of 'The A to Z of Writing Language Learning Materials') for its own use as a reference guide. It's also written in response to the types of questions and doubts that materials writers have from time to time. It draws on the authors' experience of working on published course materials and teacher resource materials. It is regularly revised and updated to reflect the changing nature of language and the demands of the publishing industry. The content also reflects feedback from our readers and users.