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Varieties

Style guides vary widely in scope and size.

Sizes

This variety in scope and length is enabled by the cascading of one style over another, in a way analogous to how styles cascade in web development and [[style sheet (desktop publishing)|in desktop cascade over CSS styles).

A short style guide is often called a style sheet. A comprehensive guide tends to be long and is often called a style manual or manual of style (MOS or MoS). In many cases, a project such as one book, journal, or monograph series typically has a short style sheet that cascades over the somewhat larger style guide of an organization such as a publishing company, whose content is usually called house style. Most house styles, in turn, cascade over an industry-wide or profession-wide style manual that is even more comprehensive. Some examples of these industry style guides include the following:

• AP style for journalism and most forms of corporate communications
• USGPO style or AGPS style for government publications
• Oxford style and Chicago style for academic publishing and readership
• APA style and ASA style for the social sciences
• CSE style for various physical sciences
• ACS style for chemistry
• AMA style for medicine
• Bluebook style for law

Finally, these reference works cascade over the orthographic norms of the language in use (for example, English orthography for English-language publications). This, of course, may be subject to national variety such as the different varieties of American English and British English.

Topics

Some style guides focus on specific topic areas such as graphic design, including typography. Website style guides cover a publication's visual and technical aspects along with text.

Style guides that cover usage may suggest ways of describing people that avoid racism, sexism, and homophobia. Guides in specific scientific and technical fields cover nomenclature, which specifies names or classifying labels that are preferred because they are clear, standardized, and ontologically sound (e.g., taxonomy, chemical nomenclature, and gene nomenclature).