Styles of wood panel siding:

• Plywood is standard pressed wood in larger sheets and usually a plain pattern.
• Hardboard lap is an inexpensive composite lap siding often found covering the exteriors of tract homes.
• Lapped wood looks like solid wood lap siding and consists of pieces of lap boards stacking on each other in a regular horizontal pattern.
• Ship lap is another horizontal pattern with tight joints similar to tongue and groove, but it laps over.
• Channel, a lap type of siding also called "channel rustic," has a pattern of one-inch wide grooves spaced out every eight inches.
• Tongue and groove is a pattern of boards (six, seven or 10 inches wide) that fit and lock together at the edges.
• Board and batten is a piece of cedar or fir sheet plywood that has a one- by two-inch strip attached to it every six or eight inches apart.
• Split log looks like a log cabin exterior.

-- Tips courtesy of HomeAdvisor.com