Differences Between Style Guides You Probably Take for Granted

Without having spent significant time familiarizing yourself with all the style guides out there, you'd be surprised how easily you can run into some minute detail of writing which they differ over. Maybe you want to think it's a stupid waste of time to even discuss and would rather just stick to what looks best to you. Hey, I get it; it's unlikely that many people would blame you. But since languages evolve over time and style guides are there to help writers stay up-to-date, don't think you're too good to at least read others' opinions before you formulate your own, especially whenever things get tricky for you.

For instance, I'm kind of a stickler myself for what words in my titles should or shouldn't be capitalized, what words should or shouldn't be hyphenated, whether to use a serial comma, how many apostrophes if any belong in a word, placement of quotation marks inside or outside a comma, etc. This is kind of a habit you can expect to get into when you've got a formal education or a job in which you're told you need to follow a fixed standard. I really don't have a problem with it at all to be honest.

Barring this, though, I like making up my own mind about what standard I want to follow instead of relying on any one opinion or style guide, because while listening to different approaches to the same situation can be helpful, it gets out of hand once people begin to insist on their own rightness. No need to go to ridiculous extremes. I also agree that if you write to be understood and you can help it, your main concern is to be neat and not set out to confuse anyone.