Ever struggled with how to best structure your writing? Here are some style guides that may be useful. Some are free online tools; some are available to purchase online …

For journalists and freelance writers:

• The Guardian has a detailed style guide on its website.
• The Economist has some good guidelines online here.
• The Chicago Manual of Style is online as a subscription service.
• The Associated Press Stylebook is a well known tool for journalists and can be purchased here.

For technical writers:

• Read Me First, an IT style guide from Sun: it’s been online for a while now and not all pages are online but it’s a great online resource if you don’t have ready access to a style guide.
• The 2011 IBM style guide comes out next month and at a reasonable price.
• Microsoft’s Manual of Style (3rd Edition) is worth consulting from time to time, but it’s 7 years old now and so not worth purchasing — and no word, that I’ve seen, about when Edition 4 (currently being written) comes out.

For legal writing, here is the New Zealand Law Foundation’s guide.

For academic writing, the APA style guide is often used. Waikato University has key APA guidelines on its site.

For business writing, the Gregg Reference Manual is well known in the United States and can be purchased here.

For scientific writing:

• The Mayfield Handbook of Technical and Scientific Writing is an online searchable tool.
• Oxford University Press has a web page of styles
• NASA has 100 pages online about grammar, punctuation, and capitalisation!

Online video is fast becoming a popular and powerful communications device. And they’re pretty cheap and easy to put together.

With a bit of planning and writing you can have a highly effective educational or persuasive tool to put on your site.

Here’s some good tips from the Open Forum about making DIY videos.