The updated Diversity Style Guide is a must-have reference. 

It’s a free online resource from the Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism (CIIJ) at San Francisco State University that updates the original compiled in the 1990s by the CIIJ’s News Watch Program.

“This is not a guide to being politically correct,” the Center explains. “Rather, it offers guidance, context and nuance for media professionals struggling to write about people who are different from themselves and communities different from their own. No one person can determine the correct usage of a word; this guide takes wisdom and advice from leaders in the field who have researched and considered the cultural, political and linguistic meanings of words.”

Edited by Rachele Kanigel, an associate professor of journalism at SF State, the guide includes 700 terms and phrases related to race/ethnicity; religion; sexual orientation; gender identity; age and generations; drugs and alcohol; and physical, mental and cognitive disabilities.

The Center said most of the terms were drawn, with permission, from the following organizations and their style or media reference guides:

• Asian American Journalists Association and its Handbook to Covering Asian America
• Densho Encyclopedia
• Gender Spectrum
• GLAAD and the GLAAD Media Reference Guide, 9th Edition
• National Association of Black Journalists and the NABJ Style Guide
• National Association of Hispanic Journalists
• National Center on Disability and Journalism and the Disability Style Guide
• National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and the NLGJA Stylebook Supplement on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Terminology
• Media Takes: On Aging, a publication of the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center and Aging Services of California
• National Institute on Drug Abuse Media Guide
• Neutrois.com
• Michigan State University School of Journalism cultural competence series:
• 100 Questions & Answers About African Americans
• 100 Questions & Answers About Americans
• 100 Questions & Answers About Arab Americans
• 100 Questions & Answers About East Asian Cultures
• 100 Questions & Answers About Indian Americans
• 100 Questions & Answers About Hispanics & Latinos
• 100 Questions & Answers About Muslim Americans
• 100 Questions, 500 Nations (co-sponsored by the Native American Journalists Association)
• 100 Questions and Answers About Veterans: A Guide for Civilians
• Religion Newswriters Association and its Religion Stylebook
• TEAM Up (Tools for Entertainment and Media), a project of the Entertainment Industries Council, and the TEAM Up Reporting on Mental Health Style Guide