Articles

Principle…

Do you use…

√

Clear familiar words

• every day conversational words
• no old fashioned words or phrases
• words appropriate for the reader to understand?

Short sentences

• an average sentence length of 15-20 words
• short, punchy sentences to highlight good news
• longer sentences to soften bad news?

Main message first

• the main message at the beginning of the:
  • document
  • paragraph
  • sentence
• the main message in the middle of the sentence if the news is bad?

Active voice

• the ‘doer’ of the sentence at the beginning of the sentence enhancing logical build up of the story?

Personalised

• pronouns to personalise the statements:
  • ‘you’ – to add impact on the reader
  • ‘I’ – to add emphasis on what the writer has done?

Formatting

• headings in all documents over 2/3 of a page
• sentence case for headings
• boxes and tables
• bullet points
• left justify text only - no alignment to the right
• shading of headings

• alignment of decimal points to the right
• 2/3 text, 1/3 white space
• date format of ‘22 February 2008’
• minimal use of brackets
• no underlining
• no full capitalisation in text or headings
• no text messaging abbreviations?

Tone

• pleasant words such as ‘thank you’, ‘pleased’, ‘action immediately’, ‘look forward to…’
• empathy to appease anger
• positive words to emphasise action
• adjectives and adverbs to add emphasis and impact?

Letters

• a sign off with:
  • Kind regards, or
  • Yours sincerely (if the letter is addressed to a person’s name), or
  • Yours faithfully (if the letter is addressed to a title)?

Credibility

• a double check for typos?