Style preferences, contested rules and house decisions
A disputed writing rule may describe established usage, prescribe a preferred form or settle a convention for one document. Distinguishing those functions helps editors concentrate on meaning and readers rather than spend time enforcing a preference as though it were a grammatical requirement.
Descriptive and prescriptive rules
Descriptive grammar rules state how language is typically used, including whether a construction is common or rare, without trying to influence usage. Prescriptive rules tell writers what to do or avoid; they can be expressed as imperatives or through modal auxiliaries, as in “You must not split infinitives”. The distinction can be obscured by may, which can describe probability or grant permission.
A command expresses a value judgement and an attempt to influence behaviour, rather than a statement that can be true or false. It can instead be assessed as wise or foolish, practical or impractical. The questions to ask are who issues it and for what purpose.
Prescriptive rules can serve two purposes.
- Helping a writer express the intended meaning accurately, precisely and unambiguously.
- Making the writing sound better so that it does not grate on someone's ear.
Dictionary usage notes can often help establish whether good writers follow a particular prescription. One editor's decision rule is generally to ignore a prescription that does not improve clarity and that good writers see no need to follow, unless a publisher's house style requires it.
House decisions and consistency
English has rules, exceptions and unregulated areas, while reference works and online resources can contradict one another. Being a native speaker does not guarantee explicit knowledge of a rule; writers using English as another language can know particular rules better than native speakers.
A style guide makes editing more efficient because a particular style issue need only be decided once. Organisational guides differ, and subjective choices can attract strong preferences, such as whether words or numerals are used up to nine, ten or twelve. The recommendation is to follow the governing guide despite disagreement unless it introduces an inaccuracy or would offend or confuse the intended audience. Where no guide exists, decisions made while editing should be recorded so the document remains internally consistent.
Where alternatives make no difference in meaning, one usage recommendation permits either style but asks for consistency within a piece of work. Different guides can disagree even about a small convention such as italicising the P in a probability value; the practical advice is to follow the responsible author's, employer's, client's, house style's or journal's preference and remain consistent within the document.
Meaning, audience and the cost of a change
An editing change should be judged by whether the reader would otherwise misunderstand the meaning and whether the term suits the intended audience. Defending a preferred expression can cease to be worth the effort or time. In one example, an editor chose before in his own writing but stopped replacing other authors' prior to, rejecting the claim that the longer expression was more scientific.
Usage can change as terms disappear and others become more common. Preferences also vary between medical writers, and advice on scientific tone does not provide definitive rules for every choice of near-synonym. A manual can make its author's preferences explicit: one medical-publication guide labels some verbs as infrequently used verbs the author favours and others as frequently used verbs the author dislikes when overused. Those labels describe preferences, including a desire for rhetorical variety.
Practical advice beyond formal rules
Practical writing advice can address how to make texts easier to write, read and understand, extending beyond the subjects of a conventional style guide. Such advice can contradict the guides, just as guides can contradict one another. Reader-focused good writing practice is an approach to clear communication rather than a formal set of requirements.