Every industry has its own vocabulary — acronyms, hyphenated terms, jargon used slightly differently than the general public would use it — and none of that gets covered by a general style manual or dictionary. Building a documented list of these specific terms is often the single most useful part of a house style guide, because it's the part no external reference can provide for you.
Why This List Is Uniquely Yours to Build
A general dictionary and style manual can resolve most everyday grammar and spelling questions, but they have no way of knowing how your specific industry treats its own acronyms, compound terms, or specialized phrases. Left undocumented, every new writer, guest contributor, or freelancer has to guess at these terms independently, and different people will inevitably guess differently, producing exactly the inconsistency a style guide is meant to prevent.
Building this list effectively should involve:
- Reviewing your own recently published content specifically for industry-specific jargon
- Noting acronyms, abbreviations, and hyphenated or compound terms that come up repeatedly
- Asking someone outside your field to review your writing and flag anything that reads as unusual
- Documenting the correct form clearly, including part of speech and any conditional usage rules
A Simple Framework
- Read through recent published content looking specifically for field-specific terminology
- Compile a list of acronyms, abbreviations, and compound or hyphenated terms that recur
- Get an outside reviewer unfamiliar with your field to flag anything that looks inconsistent or unclear
- Document each term's correct, preferred form clearly enough that a new writer needs no further guidance
> Tip: An outsider to your field will often catch inconsistencies an insider has stopped noticing entirely — someone deeply familiar with an industry naturally absorbs its internal conventions and loses the ability to spot when those conventions haven't actually been documented anywhere.
Example
Before: A team where different writers spell and capitalize a core industry term inconsistently across published content, with no single documented answer for new contributors to reference.
After: The same term documented clearly in a house word list, specifying exact spelling, capitalization, and hyphenation, removing the guesswork for every future piece of content.
Common Mistakes
- Assuming industry terminology is obvious and doesn't need explicit documentation
- Relying only on internal review, missing inconsistencies an outsider would catch immediately
- Documenting a term once but failing to specify conditional rules, like when it should or shouldn't be hyphenated
- Treating this list as a one-time task instead of updating it as new terms and products emerge
Keeping this growing list organized and easily searchable as it expands is worth setting up properly from the start. SeoWolf's Notepad is a simple place to maintain that living reference as new terms get added.
A general dictionary can tell you how to spell almost any word in the English language — it just has no idea what your industry calls the thing you sell, and that gap is exactly what this list is for.