The Conscious Style Guide

‘Karen Yin is no language cop, ready to arrest us for our word crimes. Instead, in The Conscious Style Guide, she is the beloved school crossing guard, protecting us, guiding us, reminding us to look both ways.’

‘An essential resource for writers and editors who want to get up to speed on writing with empathy and care.’

‘Karen Yin has crafted a generous, thoughtful toolkit for anyone seeking to communicate mindfully. Her insights offer a flexible pathway to practicing conscious language that avoids prescriptivism and instead invites deep reflection. A must-have reference for any bookshelf!’

‘The Conscious Style Guide is the best tool book of all. In a time when clear, accurate communication is more essential — and more challenging — than ever, Karen Yin gives writers and editors a great gift: a flexible and detailed guide for thinking through the nuances of language and context, and making wise decisions in each situation. She calls on us to embrace the complexities both of language and of people — each person we write about, and each person who reads or hears what we write. With compassion and clarity, she points us toward training our minds rather than falling back on often problematic lists of dos and don’ts. This book is a tremendous resource, affirming, and instructive at the same time. I absolutely love it.’

‘By encouraging us to consider the real impact of our words, Karen Yin’s intelligent and fair-minded book upends the conventional wisdom that writers alone, writing for some “ideal reader”, always know what’s best. To write consciously is to be aware of and compassionate toward the actual people who determine not only the success but also the meaning of any work. With its emphasis on critical thinking and the fluid interplay between content and context, The Conscious Style Guide will inspire writers and their editors to make choices that not only respect readers but, in the process, bring us all a little closer to the truth.’

‘The Conscious Style Guide is far more than style guide. It’s a holistic and generous resource for anyone interested in the real guts of language: tender, messy, hurtful, complex human interaction. It navigates the sometimes maddening flexibility of English by grounding the reader in an awareness of self, society, and others based on kindness and curiosity. The Conscious Style Guide captures the nuance inherent in a living language while providing both micro- and macro-level advice on best practices for writers, editors, and readers. No list of dos and don’ts can replace the thoughtful guidance offered by Yin. The Conscious Style Guide is a must-have reference for anyone who wants to communicate well, compassionately, and clearly.’

‘In a world where perception consistently trumps reality, fighting — let alone undoing — systemic inequity often feels laughable. What can one person do, anyway? Enter the brilliant Karen Yin. By asking one simple, yet incredibly revealing question: Why do I believe this? Yin, with insight, empathy, and unflinching honesty, deftly guides the reader through finding, and unleashing, the most potent power we have: our conscious choice of words.’

‘A book for our times … This is not a rule book. It is a book asking you to think and make informed judgments.’

Award-winning writer and editor Karen Yin is the force behind Conscious Style Guide 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.