OK, ok, okay, o.k.

In college, there were style manuals for everything— APA, AMA, AMS, CSE, ACS, LSE…all Style Guides for writing. Did you know…they do not necessarily apply to any part of professional writing outside of the university level? The only Style Guides that cross a few of the barriers from academia to the real world, are the sciences and health—and even with those, it is not across the board.
 

An example of this, is the commonly used word, okay.

  • Uses that are never accepted by any of the styles, are o.k., k, and ok.
  • University expectations have OK as acceptable, and in some instances, the Style Guides for professional writing accept OK as well.
  • If you want to avoid having to research every time, just to see if you spelled okay acceptably for the particular publication you seek—then the version that is always accepted, is the word spelled out. Okay? Perfect.