Tina

[Tina Winters]

New beginner US…what is the difference between a stitch guide and instructions 

[NCcountrygal]

The stitch guide gives you an overview of stitches that might be used in the pattern. The pattern has instructions to make the item.

Guide to Crochet Terms and Abbreviations (thesprucecrafts.com)

[Granny Square]

A stitch guide might also be called a 'special stitches' section in a pattern.  A pattern is going to assume you know the basic 'building block' stitches, like SC, DC, chain, slip stitch and so on--however something like a 'cluster', or a 'shell' is a general name of a related 'family' of similar stitches and the pattern needs to define which one they mean.

Instructions are a row by row, step by step, stitch by stitch telling you exactly what to do.

Some patterns might have a 'pattern repeat' section, example some textured patterns may cover more than 1 row for the 'repeat' to show up.  These are sometimes before the actual pattern starts, or could be defined as such inside the pattern somewhere, so you have to watch for that (does not happen in every pattern, but has been known to be a little confusing for beginners the first time they run into it.  The pattern instructions may say 'work in pattern for xx pattern repeats (or maybe xxx inches)', so that's the section where you look for what that entails.

This site is a  goldmine for beginners and old timers - see the menu at the right, 'crochet patterns - how to read', which might help with some of what you were asking.