When writing multiple choice questions, do you ever wonder whether the stem should read “what option should you choose” or “which option should you choose”?
And should options begin with a capitalized letter, even if they are incomplete sentences? Should options have closing punctuation? Should the stem end in a colon? Will anyone even care?
And, of course, it’s not just about the quiz. Throughout your curriculum, there are decisions about style, formatting, and capitalization to make.
The Significance of Style Decisions in Custom Training
All told, these minor details have ramifications. Inconsistent formatting (using all caps for emphasis in one instance, using bold in another) can lead to the muddling of messages for readers (how do I know what’s important?). Inconsistent dashes are signs that the author hasn’t paid very close attention to the smaller details of the document. And if attention wasn’t paid to smaller details, what does that say about the larger items?
How do you deal with these issues?
One option is to make decisions as you go. A hyphen is good here, an en dash here, an em dash there. Yet what happens when two different people review a document? Whose opinion carries more weight? And, while the decision might be great for this document, but what about the next, and the next after that?
Creating a Custom Training Style Guide
Writing your own style guide, recording decisions made now so that they can be applied in the future, can help. But the English language is big (assuming that you’re working in only one language and that it’s English). There are a lot of decisions.
Another option is to lean on an existing style guide, such as the Chicago Manual of Style or the Associated Press Stylebook and then augment when necessary. (Is your house style to capitalize “federal”? Then note it in the house style guide. Sure, you’ll be wrong, but you’ll be consistently wrong.)*
So, “which” options or “what” options?† “He,” “he or she,” “s/he,” or “they”? So many choices, so little time. Is it worth it to make the decision new each time? Is it worth it to build, maintain, and follow a custom training style guide?
Is it worth it not to?
Until next time,
Kevin Gumienny
Microassist Senior Editorial Curmudgeon Learning Architect
- Wrong, of course, in the sense that it contradicts your house dictionary.‡
† The answer, by the way, is which options. Assuming, of course, you follow the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition, which states in 5.53, “Which is usually selective or limited; it asks for a particular member of a group, and the answer is limited to the group addressed or referred to {Which explorers visited China in the sixteenth century?}.”
‡ Which should also be defined in your house style guide.
Note: This commentary was originally published February 2017 in our monthly Learning Dispatch newsletter.
Image credit: One Left Media
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