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In the UK, what are the equivalents to Chicago Manual of Style, the Associated Press style guide, Yahoo, APA, MLA, etc? Most importantly, what are their intended audiences? (AP is used for journalists, Yahoo for the web, APA for academia, et cetera.)

I'm specifically asking about style guides that are structured like indexes like the above references, as well as books that compare US to UK english. (The Economist style guide, for example, has a good section on this, but it's also quite short.)

(Note: I'm aware of this general question on style guides, and I'd have no objection to this question being folded into that one eventually. For now, I'm posting this as a separate question to get some attention to the question of UK usage.)

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  • How can I buy one of these British style guides? I live in São Paulo, Brazil.
    – user15101
    Aug 31, 2015 at 19:26
  • I don't know what stores are in your area, but Amazon is my go-to for hard-to-find books.
    – Goodbye Stack Exchange
    Sep 1, 2015 at 13:08

2 Answers 2

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As far as UK style guides go, what you're probably looking for is the Oxford Guide to Style, formerly known as Hart's Rules (that link also contains a useful section outlining what the nearest US equivalents are). The University of Oxford website also provides an on-line style document, but it's nowhere near as comprehensive as the book.

There are other UK style guides as well:

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  • FYI, reason why I rejected an edit of this that included a link to the Economist style guide is because the question already mentions this style guide i.e. they're already aware of it.
    – Craig Sefton
    Jun 28, 2011 at 22:18
  • I have seen a couple of people link to the same Oxford Guide that you have. Is this edition meant to be significantly better than the latest edition found here: amazon.co.uk/New-Oxford-Style-Manual-Reference/dp/019965722X/…
    – Tait
    Jan 12, 2014 at 20:00
  • @Tait This new version was published in August of 2012, more than a year after I answered, so I wasn't aware of it at the time. I imagine you'd want the updated version. However it looks like this new version is a consolidation of the Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors and the Oxford Guide to Style into a single volume, so it may be that you'd be just fine with the version I linked to. I don't know if there are significant changes to the Oxford Guide to Style in this book, so cannot say definitively.
    – Craig Sefton
    Jan 13, 2014 at 10:01
  • Another one, widely used in the publishing industry, is Butcher's Copy-editing.
    – typo
    May 21, 2016 at 7:10
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Have you read the "Strunk and White" style guide? It is not "English", it's apparently "Anglo-Saxon"!

What I notice is that, it is brilliant! I am also trying to find a more modern guide to help with some technicalities, however, Strunk and White's guide is far more eloquent and deals with the art of writing also.

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    I have read Strunk & White, but it's a different kind of guide to style than CMOS or AP - more of a manifesto and a description of style goals than a reference book.
    – Goodbye Stack Exchange
    Jun 21, 2016 at 17:41
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    Strunk & White are both American, as is the book.
    – bdsl
    Nov 13, 2021 at 12:23

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