For this unit Refers to Student’s Book pages Writing headlines

P
rime 
M
inister, the 
P
resident, and the 
Q
ueen idoli
z
e 
the
 well-known singer John Smith. 
The Economist, 
according to its style guide 
http://www.economist.com/research/
StyleGuide/
, might write the same information as
 The 
p
rime 
m
inister, the 
p
resident 
and the 
q
ueen idolise John Smith, 
a
 well-known singer. 
House style includes elements such as:
l 
preferred sentence length
l 
spelling, for example British or American
l 
treatment of abbreviations, for example N.A.T.O. or NATO, Mr. or Mr
l 
treatment of quotations, for example “Yes” or ‘Yes’ or Yes
l 
syntax, for example active or passive voice, use of there is/are
l 
use of headings
l 
paragraph length
l 
capitalisation of personal titles, for example Prime Minister
l 
punctuation, for example commas before 
and
 in lists 
l 
levels of formality, for example balance between long noun phrases (more formal) 
and verb phrases (more informal)
Useful web links
A good introduction to style guides, with useful links
http://www.freewritingadvice.com/articles/index_files/45styleguide.htm
The Economist
 and the
 Guardian
 style guides (see SB p14) are well worth browsing. 
For example, 
The Economist’
s list of dos and don’ts is full of useful advice
http://www.economist.com/research/styleGuide/index.cfm?page=673901
 
The BBC’s excellent style guide is available for free download
http://www.bbctraining.com/styleguide.asp
  
An interesting story about a problem caused by house style 
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=632
 
NB This blog has a whole section on language and the media, which is a good source 
of supplementary reading texts.