Writing style guide

Publications and (some) organizations have their respective style guides or style manuals. For example, we have the New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, The Yahoo! Style Guide, and The Chicago Manual of Style.

(Some) writers have their own styles/preferences, here are some of mine when i write articles. Just sharing. These are my preferences, if you disagree, please do not hate me. Kekeke.



- play, not "straight play;" there is no such thing as a "non-straight play"

- theater, not theatre (we are not in the united kingdom nor were we a british colony); unless proper noun. reject the pretentious claim that "theater" means venue and "theatre" means the art form.

- tagalog translation, not filipino translation; unless writing for international readership

- do not use marketing/pr titles or descriptors (e.g. "king of philippine theater" or "enfant terrible of philippine theater")

(after doreen fernandez)
- be aware when using spanish spellings of spanish/mexican theater forms, be vigilant in using filipino spellings of the indigenized forms, as when these forms were created by filipinos (e.g.  zarzuela / sarswela, comedia / komedya, etc.); if these forms were created by philippine-born of spanish descent, use judgement (consider subject matter of their work).

- when mentioning "komedya," whenever possible, endeavor to explain that it does not mean "comedy" and that it is derived from a spanish word meaning "drama"

- endeavor to find out correct/official name of a theater (e.g. carlos romulo auditorium, NOT rcbc theater);
in relation, drop middle initials and extraneous second names like the ma. of wilfrido maria guerrero.
in relation; when writing down addresses, spell out or reject all acronyms
in relation; for venues located in developments named with "city" (e.g. eastwood city and bonifacio global city), mention the real city (i.e. quezon city for eastwood city and taguig city for bonifacio global city)

- additional shows or extended run; if within same calendar year or theater season

- restaging; if last staging was last year or if last theater season

- when writing about campus-groups, mention the non-student artistic director/moderator whenever possible