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Editing Guidelines

What Is a Style Guide?

Learn what a style guide is, how to create one, and what to include in a style guide to make sure your content is consistent and easy to read.

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Introduction

Our text compare tool is a fantastic, lightweight tool that provides plagiarism checks between two documents. Whether you are a student, blogger or publisher, this tool offers a great solution to detect and compare similarities between any two pieces of text. In this article, I will discuss the different ways to use the tool, the primary features of the tool and who this tool is for. There is an FAQ at the bottom if you run into any issues when trying to use the tool.

What makes Originality.ai’s text comparison tool stand out?

Keyword density helper – This tool comes with a built-in keyword density helper in some ways similar to the likes of SurferSEO or MarketMuse the difference being, ours is free! This feature shows the user the frequency of single or two word keywords in a document, meaning you can easily compare an article you have written against a competitor to see the major differences in keyword densities. This is especially useful for SEO’s who are looking to optimize their blog content for search engines and improve the blog’s visibility.

Ways to compare

File compare – Text comparison between files is a breeze with our tool. Simply select the files you would like to compare, hit “Upload” and our tool will automatically insert the content into the text area, then simply hit “Compare” and let our tool show you where the differences in the text are. By uploading a file, you can still check the keyword density in your content.

URL compare

Comparing text between URLs is effortless with our tool. Simply paste the URL you would like to get the content from (in our example we use a fantastic blog post by Sherice Jacob found here) hit “Submit URL” and our tool will automatically retrieve the contents of the page and paste it into the text area, then simply click “Compare” and let our tool highlight the difference between the URLs. This feature is especially useful for checking keyword density between pages!

Simple text compare

You can also easily compare text by copying and pasting it into each field, as demonstrated below.

Features of Originality.ai’s Text Compare Tool

Ease of use

Our text compare tool is created with the user in mind, it is designed to be accessible to everyone. Our tool allows users to upload files or enter a URL to extract text, this along with the lightweight design ensures a seamless experience. The interface is simple and straightforward, making it easy for users to compare text and detect the diff.

Multiple text file format support

Our tool provides support for a variety of different text files and microsoft word formats including pdf file, .docx, .odt, .doc, and .txt, giving users the ability to compare text from different sources with ease. This makes it a great solution for students, bloggers, and publishers who are looking for file comparison in different formats.

Protects intellectual property

Our text comparison tool helps you protect your intellectual property and helps prevent plagiarism. This tool provides an accurate comparison of texts, making it easy to ensure that your work is original and not copied from other sources. Our tool is a valuable resource for anyone looking to maintain the originality of their content.

User Data Privacy

Our text compare tool is secure and protects user data privacy. No data is ever saved to the tool, the users’ text is only scanned and pasted into the tool’s text area. This makes certain that users can use our tool with confidence, knowing their data is safe and secure.

Compatibility

Our text comparison tool is designed to work seamlessly across all size devices, ensuring maximum compatibility no matter your screen size. Whether you are using a large desktop monitor, a small laptop, a tablet or a smartphone, this tool adjusts to your screen size. This means that users can compare texts and detect the diff anywhere without the need for specialized hardware or software. This level of accessibility makes it an ideal solution for students or bloggers who value the originality of their work and need to compare text online anywhere at any time.

You already know how consistency is the cornerstone of your brand. 

The same fonts, colors, and style that say “This is unmistakably [brand]”. 

To establish a cohesive brand style that clearly communicates brand values and style, your style guide is essential.

A style guide isn’t just a “once and done” process. It’s an evolving document that lays out all the rules and standards for how you present and structure your content. It guides the approach and tone of every piece you produce. 

Let’s take a closer look.

In This Article:

  • What a style guide is 
  • Why it’s important to have a style guide
  • Compare the unique elements of editorial and brand style guides
  • Tips for creating a style guide

Looking for a best-in-class suite of patented editorial tools? Check out the Originality.ai Grammar Checker, AI Checker, and Content Optimizer.

What Is a Style Guide? 

A style guide is essentially a set of directions that outline how content needs to be created and formatted. 

It may cover everything from capitalization rules and citation formats to color codes and fonts. 

In this guide, we’ll take a closer look at what goes into both an editorial style guide and a brand style guide, so that you can optionally choose to combine them into one document if you wish to have a central go-to source. 

Why Have a Style Guide? 

Beyond having a single “source” to refer to for questions about how text or images should be formatted, there are several reasons to consider taking the time to create a style guide. 

Here are some of the biggest benefits of a style guide

Consistent content and communication

Whether you have one person creating all of your content assets or you’ve got a large pool of contributors, having a style guide makes sure that every piece of content and every communication is consistent and unified under the larger brand umbrella. 

Better collaboration

Clear, accessible style guidelines make onboarding new team members faster and editorial reviews even easier since every article is checked against the same standards. 

Improved quality

Consistent fonts, image styles, and layouts of everything from blog posts to social media captions become recognizable over time and are tied to your brand. 

As people begin to identify with and understand your values, the quality of your content helps shape their responses. That in itself delivers a better user experience, no matter what marketing channel the user is interacting with. 

What Goes Into an Editorial Style Guide? 

Although every company is different and each one has a preferred approach to handling what goes into a style guide, in general, with an editorial style guide, you’ll find elements like: 

Spelling and grammar

This section includes which language standard to follow (for instance, American English versus British English) and how to handle specialized terms. It might include country or region-specific differences, like preferring the spelling color versus colour, or organize versus organise. 

Punctuation

This is the section where you can insist on the use of the Oxford comma. It covers how you want to use different types of punctuation, including em dashes, quotation marks and ellipses. For instance, you might include that serial commas are required in lists, or that em dashes should (or should not) have spaces on each side. 

Capitalization

Do you want your content to follow title case or sentence case capitalization rules when it comes to headings? How will you treat proper nouns or internal capitalization? Should it be eCommerce or e-commerce or e-Commerce? This is the section to cover that. 

Citations and references

How will you credit sources and references? Which academic style will you use (APA, MLA or Chicago) or will you use your own internal system? How are things like footnotes and endnotes handled? Are in-text citations in parentheses required?

Document structure

The document structure section details how you’ll handle headings, subheadings, summaries, bulleted and numbered lists, as well as the length of paragraphs. For instance, you might choose to make headings always appear in the form of a question or as an active-voice statement. 

Vocabulary and tone

How formal do you want your tone to be? Is your brand more conversational or more corporate? Make a list of words or phrases to avoid and others that you recommend incorporating. 

Now that you have a better idea of what goes into an editorial style guide, let’s turn our attention to a brand style guide. 

AI use

As well as covering grammar, citations, and tone, in the age of AI, it’s essential to include AI policies in an editorial style guide. Clarify whether AI tools are (or are not) permitted and, if so, to what extent. That way, the entire team is on the same page from the beginning of the project.

Also, clarify if an AI Checker will be used to detect potential instances of AI text as part of the editing process.

What Goes Into a Brand Style Guide? 

Brand style guides make sure that every piece you publish, whether it’s a carousel on Instagram or a video on TikTok, follows the same visual identity. Brand style guides most commonly include: 

Logo use

Include the main logo (as well as versions for both vertical and horizontal use) and guidelines for how much space to include around the logo. Include any changes that aren’t allowed to be made to the logo, such as adding drop-shadows, changing the color scheme or editing the proportions of the logo. 

Color palette

This section of the brand style guide is tailored for graphic designers, but it’s important for content creators as well, who might be creating charts or images on platforms like Canva. 

The color palette lays out the main brand colors along with their exact color codes (RGB, CMYK and codes for HTML). It also includes secondary colors as well as how to combine them and what level of contrast to include for better accessibility. 

Typography and font styles

Includes which fonts should be used for headings, subheadings, body text, and other special sections like pull quotes. It may also recommend web-specific fonts or system fonts if the main font you want to use isn’t available online. 

Imagery and photos

This section includes the ideal photography or imagery setup, such as how much natural light to include, how much contrast belongs in the composition, and so on. 

It most commonly shows what’s acceptable and what isn’t in terms of image filters or overlays, since it’s impossible to cover every specific type of imagery and photo!

Voice and messaging

Communicates the brand’s personality or brand voice within a few words, like warm, energizing, or approachable. It might also include example headlines, taglines, and social media captions. 

6 Tips for Creating a Style Guide

Ready to create your own style guide? Here are some top tips to consider:

  1. Conduct a Content Audit: Review existing materials, including blog posts, articles and design files, to spot any inconsistencies and make a priority list of what needs to be streamlined and standardized. 
  2. Reinforce Your Goals: Whether you’re looking to reduce time spent on creating content or create a more cohesive brand identity, your style guide should reflect your business goals and vision for your brand. 
  3. Create a First Draft: Write up a rough draft of the guidelines. It doesn’t need to be expressly detailed yet.
  4. Validate with Your Team: Share the draft with key decision-makers and stakeholders. Get feedback, particularly on formatting and accessibility. Polish up the draft based on the feedback you receive. 
  5. Publish and Train Your Team: Put the guide in an area where it can be easily accessed, such as a centralized Google Drive or Dropbox. Provide quick tutorials or onboarding for new team members and refreshers for existing staff. 
  6. Review: Whenever you’re reviewing new content or graphics, check to make sure they adhere to the guide. It’s a good idea to draft a simple checklist that reinforces key points of the guide to help keep everything unified. 

For a complete guide, check out this resource: How to Create a Style Guide.

Final Thoughts

As your brand evolves, it’s always a good idea to go back and make sure that the guide still stays true to the vision and tone you’re looking to portray. 

Keep in mind that a well-written style guide is more than just a rulebook — it’s the guide rails for every piece of content and every design you publish. 

By focusing on both the editorial and branding parts of the style guide, you make sure that from blog posts to brochures, every detail sounds like your brand. 

Get a best-in-class suite of patented editorial tools! Check out the Originality.ai Grammar Checker, AI Checker, and Content Optimizer.

Then, learn more editorial tips and best practices:

Sherice Jacob

Sherice Jacob is a seasoned copywriter and content professional fluent in English, Spanish, and Catalan, with over 25 years of experience crafting high-converting copy. Passionate about AI, she enjoys exploring the new innovations and possibilities it brings to the world of content creation.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it important to check for plagiarism?

Tools for conducting a plagiarism check between two documents online are important as it helps to ensure the originality and authenticity of written work. Plagiarism undermines the value of professional and educational institutions, as well as the integrity of the authors who write articles. By checking for plagiarism, you can ensure the work that you produce is original or properly attributed to the original author. This helps prevent the distribution of copied and misrepresented information.

What is Text Comparison?

Text comparison is the process of taking two or more pieces of text and comparing them to see if there are any similarities, differences and/or plagiarism. The objective of a text comparison is to see if one of the texts has been copied or paraphrased from another text. This text compare tool for plagiarism check between two documents has been built to help you streamline that process by finding the discrepancies with ease.

How do Text Comparison Tools Work?

Text comparison tools work by analyzing and comparing the contents of two or more text documents to find similarities and differences between them. This is typically done by breaking the texts down into smaller units such as sentences or phrases, and then calculating a similarity score based on the number of identical or nearly identical units. The comparison may be based on the exact wording of the text, or it may take into account synonyms and other variations in language. The results of the comparison are usually presented in the form of a report or visual representation, highlighting the similarities and differences between the texts.

String comparison is a fundamental operation in text comparison tools that involves comparing two sequences of characters to determine if they are identical or not. This comparison can be done at the character level or at a higher level, such as the word or sentence level.

The most basic form of string comparison is the equality test, where the two strings are compared character by character and a Boolean result indicating whether they are equal or not is returned. More sophisticated string comparison algorithms use heuristics and statistical models to determine the similarity between two strings, even if they are not exactly the same. These algorithms often use techniques such as edit distance, which measures the minimum number of operations (such as insertions, deletions, and substitutions) required to transform one string into another.

Another common technique for string comparison is n-gram analysis, where the strings are divided into overlapping sequences of characters (n-grams) and the frequency of each n-gram is compared between the two strings. This allows for a more nuanced comparison that takes into account partial similarities, rather than just exact matches.

String comparison is a crucial component of text comparison tools, as it forms the basis for determining the similarities and differences between texts. The results of the string comparison can then be used to generate a report or visual representation of the similarities and differences between the texts.

What is Syntax Highlighting?

Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors and integrated development environments (IDEs) that helps to visually distinguish different elements of a code or markup language. It does this by coloring different elements of the code, such as keywords, variables, functions, and operators, based on a predefined set of rules.

The purpose of syntax highlighting is to make the code easier to read and understand, by drawing attention to the different elements and their structure. For example, keywords may be colored in a different hue to emphasize their importance, while comments or strings may be colored differently to distinguish them from the code itself. This helps to make the code more readable, reducing the cognitive load of the reader and making it easier to identify potential syntax errors.

How Can I Conduct a Plagiarism Check between Two Documents Online?

With our tool it’s easy, just enter or upload some text, click on the button “Compare text” and the tool will automatically display the diff between the two texts.

What Are the Benefits of Using a Text Compare Tool?

Using text comparison tools is much easier, more efficient, and more reliable than proofreading a piece of text by hand. Eliminate the risk of human error by using a tool to detect and display the text difference within seconds.

What Files Can You Inspect with This Text Compare Tool?

We have support for the file extensions .pdf, .docx, .odt, .doc and .txt. You can also enter your text or copy and paste text to compare.

Will My Data Be Shared?

There is never any data saved by the tool, when you hit “Upload” we are just scanning the text and pasting it into our text area so with our text compare tool, no data ever enters our servers.

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