Tone of Voice & Copy Rules

Before we start, I don't know why this looks weird on here, something to do with copying from word in to Blogger causes the text to format wrongly, so there is bold where it shouldn't be and normal where it should be bold etc. Annie has a pdf so will be fine on the day.

Our tone of voice is a very important aspect of Lambeth College’s identity. It runs through everything from advertising to the prospectus to letters given to students. It manages to communicate the main points of our college without ever having to say them out loud.

A tone of voice is best thought of as body language for written text. The tone of voice for Lambeth College is based around our brand attributes. These are; creativity, revelation and individuality. Emphasise these points wherever possible.

Our tone of voice is to be clear, direct but still friendly. Write with the directness that a close friend would use when giving advice, to the point but never unwelcoming.

It is important when writing to ensure that clarity is one of our top priorities, misunderstandings lead to people and the college missing out. To achieve this there are a few simple points to follow which are outlined and described in this section.

Copy Rules

Clarity

Do not use five word when one will do, be brief, saying only the essentials with clear and concise sentences. If we add in unnecessary wording it can make the structure hard to follow and allows the audience to wander away from the information. Try your best never to use jargon. This only speeds up things if both author and reader know what it means, always assume that our reader is new to their course. If using jargon or overly technical language is absolutely unavoidable be sure to explain what is meant by the phrase or word.

Please never attempt to use street slang or text language in order to identify with students or prospective students. This does not make us look like a teenager. Instead we appear rather more like a parent who is trying too hard to fit in, which is very off putting. Teenagers naturally rebel against what their parents advise so why do we want to appear like that? Try to include human examples where possible. A paragraph written by a student adds more personality and ensures that writing does not become cold and overly authoritarian. However do not script this or tell the student what to write. This is easily spotted and never reflects positively on the college. A student saying “the college is great” will gain no new students.

Do’s and don’ts (for Annie, don’t write this in the prospectus; put them in a table or some wonderful info graphic. The lists are written with the don’t being a counterpart to the do, so approximate goes with ballpark as two examples of saying things in the right and wrong way.)

Jargon/slang/text language –

Do: Approximate, student, good, you too,

Don’t: Ballpark, target market, cool, u2 (unless talking about the Irish band),

Style

There is nothing wrong with using humour and it will usually add spice to otherwise dull text on some boring technical aspect of the course. Nevertheless be cautious not to try too hard or to be too casual. Lambeth College is still a place of learning and should appear as such but there is no reason a place of learning cannot have a fun side.

Be sure to engage the audience by saying things in an original way; try to catch them off guard. They have seen “we are a friendly college” a hundred times in any prospectus of any college. This will not interest them and we are selling ourselves on promoting individuality and creativity so try to be original.

Always be cautious not to appear patronising or condescending (even if this section of writing can appear that way).

Detail

It is easy to miss small details when creating large amounts of writing for a prospectus or letters for students but it is these details that often jump out on the page at a reader. So to avoid this make sure that we double or even triple check all text for grammar and spelling. Get different people to do this than the people that wrote it. Before we begin writing check that our software is set to English (United Kingdom) as by virtue of most software being American it is often default set to English (US).

Use paragraphs to build structure and add clarity to our writing. Bullet points can be interesting and are a good way of keeping the reader’s interest but too many make for a disjointed text which can be hard to follow. Sentences should be short. One thought, or point, per sentence is enough. In order to help the flow of the text abbreviations should be avoided where possible. Writing Hrs. Instead of hours is pointless, it is a few less characters to type and looks far uglier on the page. Abbreviations are only to be used where they are in common language use such as phone, photo or bye.

Underlining in text looks very messy and unprofessional. It is also very difficult to fit it in designed text without it looking downright ugly. So for emphasis use bold or italic text, but only use one or the other, never use both on the same word. Further to this do not use unnecessary punctuation marks such as exclamation points. These do not sit well in text and often make our writing look childish and immature. The exclamation point was originally used in plays to show someone laughing at their own joke and nobody ever likes the person who does that.

When writing numbers use the word for the number until we reach the number ten, after this use the numbers but low digit numbers just look out of place in text as a numeral rather than as a word. Also in statistics do not switch between fractions and percentages within a paragraph. If possible always use percentages as these are easier to understand for people who struggle with maths. If you do have to use fractions then use fractions throughout the paragraph.

Do’s Don’ts

Do: Hours, to be confirmed, emphasise like this or this, five, Humour, autumn

Don’t: Hrs. TBC. never this or this, 5, Humor, Fall

Headlines

Headlines are there to communicate information on things such as course title or campus. We view this type of information very quickly and it can often be easy to miss it if it is not made clear. Therefore our headlines should be clear and relevant. There is no point using a headline if it is not there to communicate anything, it is usually best to leave the header empty with just a block of colour in the situation.

As with copy we should be unexpected with our headlines. This is the writing that is meant to grab the student’s attention so take them by surprise, people will often remember a Sun newspaper headline for being humorous or unexpected, but how many people can remember a Telegraph headline five years later?

However be careful not to appear aloof or superior to our students. They are equal to the college not inferior to it.

Do’s & Don’ts

Do: An Outstanding College

Don’t: Ofsted recently gave Lambeth College a rating of 1 meaning that we are now classed as an outstanding college.