Writing and content

Words are your tools, so it’s important to choose them carefully. Your ideas can be complex and sophisticated, but your writing should express them simply.

Clearly written messages also show respect and consideration for your audience, which helps build better relationships. The following writing tools will help you do that.

Be reader-friendly

Connect with your audience directly by using words like ‘you’, ‘we’ and ‘I’, if that’s an appropriate tone for your message. Think of your written words as the start of a conversation.

Match your level of technical language to your audience. Academic staff will understand the meaning of some phrases and terms about curriculum or assessments, but students may not. If you have to use bureaucratic, technical or legal terms, include a definition or explanation.

Be clear

Using plain and clear language helps your audience read, understand and use the information you are giving them.

Tip: Where possible, choose a simple word or phrase over a complex one. Writing in short, simple words doesn’t mean you are ‘dumbing down’ the message. It means you are communicating your important and complex ideas as clearly and effectively as possible.

The principles of plain language include:

• structuring your message logically
• using headings, subheadings, lists and tables to help readers navigate through your material
• writing short, uncomplicated sentences and leaving out anything that isn’t necessary for your message
• choosing common, everyday words rather than jargon or technical terms
• only using acronyms when absolutely necessary and always defining them the first time they appear
• using white space, typography that is easy to read and visual tools.

Using inclusive language shows courtesy and respect for diversity. Before identifying particular characteristics about people when you write, ask whether it is necessary and relevant to the discussion.

Tip: Avoid gendered pronouns: Avoid writing his/her, it is now acceptable to use ‘their’ even if the subject of your sentence is singular.

If it is necessary, then use words that emphasise people’s humanity, rather than focusing on their gender, race, cultural background, religion, age, sexual orientation, physical or intellectual ability or appearance.

Using the active voice means being clear about who (the ‘actor’) is doing what (the ‘action’). For example, ‘The ball was kicked’ is passive, as we don’t know who kicked the ball. ‘The teacher kicked the ball’ is active.

Writing in the active voice gives the reader more information, and it also adds accountability to your message.

When the action is more important than the actor, the passive voice is appropriate. For example, ‘The new library will be opened in January’, is passive, but the important message is that the library will be opened, not who is opening it.

Where available, centralised content must be linked to rather than being duplicated or customised across the website.

This ensures that when the information is updated, users are directed to accurate content, rather than relying on information to be manually updated.

Key central content that should be linked to includes:

Program and course information - Link to Course Finder
Policies and procedures - Link to Policy Central

The style of writing is determined by the targeted audience.

Our website is a key marketing tool for the University and a rich information source for existing staff and students. Content should be written with the intended audience in mind. Our goal is to enable visitors to find information as effortlessly as possible.

• Marketing content should be presented in a positive, optimistic and friendly but not over-stated style. Refer to our Brand Standards (or Brand Book) for more information.
• Material for existing staff and students should be presented in short, focused sentences without undue embellishment.
• Write directly to your audience. It makes the content more personal and engaging.
  Correct: We offer flexible and convenient ways for you to study, including part-time and online learning.
  Incorrect: Federation University Australia offers flexible and convenient ways for students to study, including part-time and online learning.

The presentation of written text should be consistent across the website.

Web pages, files and text must follow standard conventions. This ensures that pages, menu items, browser titles, downloadable files and web content have meaningful and consistent names and presentation for the reader.

To meet this requirement, these conventions should be followed:

• Use whole words, except where abbreviations are universally understood
  Correct: 'Union Collective Agreement' 'Mt Helen Campus map.doc'
  Incorrect: 'UCA' 'mth_camp-2.doc'
• Page titles and headings should be sentence case
  Correct: 'Contact us' 'Written/text conventions'
  Incorrect: 'Contact Us' 'Written/Text Conventions'
• Upper case should not be used for words
  Correct: 'Information sessions'
  Incorrect: 'INFORMATION SESSIONS'
• Bold or italics should be used for emphasis rather than underlines
  'Bold' or 'italics' should be used for word/phrase emphasis rather than 'underlines'.
• Font faces, colours or sizes must not be specified in the HTML code
  Select options in the WYSIWYG editor to ensure the standard text presentation is not over-written
• Headings should not end in ':' or '!'
  Correct: Meeting location
  Incorrect: Meeting location:
  Correct: Note
  Incorrect: Note!
• One space (only) at the end of a sentence.
• Numbers up to nine should be written as text. Larger numbers should be written numerically.
• Phone number format
  (03) 5327 9363 (note spacing). Phone numbers should not break over two lines.
  If content is directed at an international audience, use the format +61 3 5327 9363. If content is directed at a Victorian audience remove (03).

Images can add to the visual appeal of a web page. However, images also add to the size (and hence load time) of a page and can push valuable content out of sight for readers.

If used they should be sharp and of good quality. To ensure a professional appearance clip art images should not be used.

Please note that text within graphics (such as a diagram or graphically presented table) is not indexed by the site's search engine and hence will not be found through a site search. It is good practice to use images that contain no text; we need to consider that the person viewing the web page may be using a mobile device so will be unable to read the text on a small screen.

Recommended sizes

Images should be resized to the appropriate dimensions before being brought into the CMS.

Types of image

Informative

If the image presents information to the site visitor that is not available anywhere else on the page it is considered to be informative and must have appropriate HTML 'alt text' that adequately conveys the purpose and function of the image. We must consider whether the person accessing the page is missing out on information if they cannot see the image, and provide an alternative means of conveying the message.

Decorative

Images that do not present any new information to the site visitor, and whose only function is to add visual appeal to the page are considered to be decorative. Decorative images do not require 'alt text'. They should be aligned to the right of the page.

Sensory

Images of art work and sculptures are examples of sensory images. HTML 'alt text' must be provided which describes the item, names the creator/artist and year of creation.

Editorial responsibility for content

Site owners are responsible for the accuracy and currency of all material published within their respective domains. The Web Management and Publishing Procedure outlines the responsibilities of the site owner in full.

Creation and maintenance of content

Nominated content coordinators across the University are responsible for the creation and maintenance of content within their respective areas. The corporate web team provides training and support to content coordinators. Errors or issues on a web page should be reported to the content coordinator, whose name appears at the bottom of the page.

Nominated content publishers may have access to edit individual or multiple pages. In principle, publishers should liaise with their respective content coordinator in the first instance with regards to web content issues.

The Web Management and Publishing Procedure outlines the responsibilities of content coordinators and publishers in full.

Monsido is a web governance platform that both assists in ensuring the quality of your website, and in avoiding bad user experiences caused by broken links, misspellings and inaccurate content.

Federation University web publishers and content coordinators can have access to Monsido for the web area that they are responsible for, receiving regular reports and access to the service. Locating broken links and misspellings on your web pages is easy using the Monsido Chrome Extension.

Find instructions and more information here.

Contemporary usage means that full stops are no longer necessary after abbreviations, acronyms or contractions.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations are formed by omitting letters from the end of a word. Full stops and other punctuation marks are not used in most abbreviations but are still preferred in shortened Latin words:

Acronyms

Acronyms are formed from the initial letters of words (whether the result is pronounceable as a word or as a series of letters). Full stops are not necessary between initials.

Write the name in full first with the acronym in brackets after. The acronym can then be used in the content.

eg Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation (CeRDI)

CeRDI staff were honoured with an award...

Contractions

Contractions are formed by omitting letters from the middle of a word. Full stops are not necessary.

Symbols

Do not use @ in place of 'at' unless it refers to a unit price or within an electronic address.

Avoid using ampersands (&) in body text (unless it is within a specific title name). Use 'and' instead.

To assist readability, headings need to follow a structured hierarchy, with a clear distinction between heading sizes. Headings should be descriptive so they provide the reader with a suggestion of what will follow, allowing scan-reading. Headings should be aligned to the left.

Our headings should be written in Sentence case - only the first word and proper nouns have initial capitals.

Headings should not:

• be questions
• end in a full stop or colon
• be hyperlinks
• be written in all capitals

Formal titles and proper nouns should be written with a capital letter at the start of each word.

Terms often incorrectly capitalised: international, staff, students, bachelor's degree, higher education, lecturer, teacher

We use Australian spelling, which is often different to American or British. Some common examples are listed here, but if you are unsure check the Macquarie Dictionary.

Use your spell-check.

Tip: You may need to set the language in Microsoft Word to English (Australian) to stop it automatically changing your words to US spelling.

If you are referring to a specific organisation or publication, or using a direct quote, always use the original spelling.

If the items in your list are complete sentences, start each one with a capital letter and finish each with a full stop.

If the items in your list are not complete sentences, start each item with a lower-case letter. Don’t use commas or semicolons at the end of each item. Don’t use ‘and’ on the second-last item. Do use a full stop after the final item.

All items in a list must follow the same grammatical structure. You can check this by reading the introductory phrase and then each item to see if it makes sense.

• Professional but conversational
• Positive but not over-stated
• Relaxed and friendly but not too familiar

• We keep language simple and clear
• We use short, focused sentences without undue embellishment
• We don't use nicknames, slang or emoticons
• We are clear and concise
• We don’t SHOUT at our reader
• We speak in the first (we, us, our/s) and second (you, your/yours) person
• We value and respect our reader – they are our focus
• Our language is ‘inclusive’ – avoiding biased or prejudicial terms

Plain language

We use plain language, which is

• Faster to read
• Easier to understand
• Preferred by a wide range of readers

Plain language uses:

• familiar, everyday words
• strong verbs in an active voice
• simple sentence framework, with shorter sentences
• headings, bullet points and other formatting techniques to make it easy to scan a document and find key information