Written style

Why we need a style guide

Unlike academic writing, which is targeted at a critical and informed audience, much of our communications are aimed at a wider range of audiences, e.g staff, students, alumni, partners, supporters etc. Additionally, among our diverse and inclusive community English may not be the first language, so it’s important that we convey information in a clear and consistent way.

Building consistency in our style helps strengthen our reputation, develops a recognisable identity for LSTM and amplifies our messages.

This guide has been created to help bring consistency to how we communicate with our audiences, which will help strengthen our brand, build trust and recognition and increase loyalty and advocacy among our audiences.

This page sets out general guidelines. Specific words, phrases and abbreviations are in House style.

General guidelines

For general punctuation, spelling and grammar, always start with the BBC News style guide.

You can also use tools like Grammarly for general advice and suggestions about how to make your communications more engaging.

Generally, we should:

Use active language and not passive

Avoid jargon

Where there is a simple term, use it.

Avoid technical scientific language where there is a plain English alternative, unless this is relevant academic writing, e.g a specialist journal or conference presentation.

Speak in the first person wherever possible and appropriate

Exclamation marks

Use sparingly and only ever when the communication is informal.

Accuracy

Accuracy is important

Accuracy helps to build trust in our brand and, as an academic institution, it’s the minimum expectation of our audiences.

Always make sure your communications have been proofread. It’s easy to miss simple grammatical or spelling errors or typos.

Use Grammarly and spell checkers

Use these additional tools to help you check your own content.

And use the “two eyes on” principle before anything is published (even online!)

Even the best writers get someone else to read their work, so always ask a colleague to cast an eye over any mass emails, social media posts, publications etc.

Equity, diversity and inclusion

As a global organisation with a diverse community of staff, students, alumni and partners we have a strong commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion. As an institution we are on a journey to better understand our colonial connections and are committed to becoming an anti-racist organisation.

The way we communicate translates through words and pictures and can either reflect the people we work with, or it can reinforce discrimination and marginalisation of specific groups of people.

In all our communications we should:

• Think about opportunities to feature more diversity in race, body type, physical ability, age, gender, sexuality etc.

• Seek out a diverse range of voices, perspectives and views in all our communications and marketing and avoid reinforcing UK/Euro-centric perspectives.

• Consider the sensitivity around words and phrases that relate to culture, race, gender, etc. For further guidance around words and phrases we recommend taking a look at Arizona State University’s inclusion guidelines as an example of best practice. Guidance on producing accessible, inclusive communications can be found on the government website.

  LSTM’s Decolonisation Toolkit contains helpful guidance on the correct terminology to use when talking about race.

• Make all content accessible to as many people as possible. This could be as simple as avoiding brand colours that may not be apparent to colourblind individuals and as complex as adding special software to capture closed captioning on videos.