The Conscious Style Guide: a flexible approach to language that includes, respects, and empowers
About this ebook
Most of us want to choose inclusive, respectful, and empowering language when communicating with or about others. But language — and how we use it — continually evolves, along with cultural norms. When contradictory opinions muddle our purpose, how do we align our word choices with our beliefs? Who has the final say when people disagree? And why is it so hard to let go of certain words? Afraid of getting something wrong or offending, we too often treat words as dos or don'ts, regardless of context and nuance.
Thankfully, in The Conscious Style Guide, award-winning editor Karen Yin provides a roadmap for communicating with sensitivity and awareness — no matter how the world around us changes. Readers will learn:
- How to identify biased language
- How to implement the overarching principles that guide us toward conscious language
- How to adopt conscious language as a tool for self-awareness and empowerment
- How to alleviate the stress of experiencing exclusionary language
- How to create a style sheet and reference stack to help support your practice
- And much more
With practical advice and hundreds of relatable examples, The Conscious Style Guide invites us to weigh contradictions, examine the pitfalls of binary thinking, and explore truly effective communication — in all aspects of our lives.
About the author
Award-winning writer and editor Karen Yin is the force behind Conscious Style Guide (which was a website before it inspired a book) and The Conscious Language Newsletter. She also founded the Editors of Color Database, one of Writer’s Digest’s Best Websites for Writers 2023, and AP vs. Chicago, a humorous blog for anyone who ‘gives a dollar sign, ampersand, exclamation point, and pound sign about style’. Named editor of the year by ACES: The Society for Editing in 2017, Yin has served on the Chicago Manual of Style advisory board and contributed to The Associated Press Stylebook. Her children’s books include Whole Whale, So Not Ghoul, Doug the Pug and the Kindness Crew, and Nice to Eat You. Yin is writing another book at this exact moment somewhere in Southern California.
