SUNY Plattsburgh Web Writing Style Guide

Web Development

• Overview
• Getting Started
• Policies
• Roles and Responsibilities

Web Teams & Groups

• Web Development
• Web Oversight Working Group (WOWG)

Resources

• Essential Questions: A Guide for Web Content Providers
• What Students Are Asking About Our Programs
• Writing Effectively for Search Engines
• Suggested Reading List

Style Guide

• Guidelines
• Checklist

WIDGET

• Users' Manual
• Development Server (Password Protected)
• Production Server (Password Protected)

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SUNY Plattsburgh Web Style Guide

Writing Style

The Basics

• Use simple, direct sentences.
• Provide factual and content-rich information. Avoid anything that can be perceived as advertising copy or fluff.
• Start a web page with the conclusion first, as well as a short summary of the remaining content, instead of leading up to the main point (as is typical in a paragraph).
• Write in the active voice. For example, "The ability to jump-start their careers with an internship" becomes "Jumpstart your career with an internship."
• Update your website's content often.

Use An Appropriate Tone

• Refer to the college in the first person plural (when pronouns are used at all), such as "We provide a broad range of academic programs."
• Refer to the reader in the second person, as in "Your needs drive all of our efforts."
• Write for your audience - not for yourself.
• If your content needs instructions or you have to explain it, there's room for improvement. The length of your instructional text is almost always inversely proportionate to the usability of your product.

Divide Text Into Small, Easy-to-Read Chunks

• Use section titles, headings, and sub-heads. They are signposts that help readers find content they are interested in.
• Present lists as bulleted items, not as prose. Avoid lists of more than seven items.
• Use clear section titles and liberally include headings and sub-headings where they help users to quickly find information.
• Avoid ambiguity. Avoid incomplete teasers. Give your readers the information as soon as possible and as succinctly as possible.

Spelling

• Be sure to spell check your content.
• "Website" is one word.
• Use American spelling throughout.

Abbreviations and Acronyms

• Avoid abbreviations, even for commonly abbreviated words. Abbreviations usually don't make any sense when they are read aloud by screen reading software (used by people with visual disabilities).
• Spell out acronyms the first time they are used on a page - A Very Long Title (A.V.L.T. or AVLT)

Our Name

• The correct name of the college is State University of New York College at Plattsburgh.
• SUNY Plattsburgh is also acceptable and you can use Plattsburgh State afterwards on the same page.
• Never use PSU.

Structuring Your Document

• An effective HTML page is one that is structured. Dave Raggett (of the World Wide Web Consortium) has posted some tips for Getting Started with HTML .

Formatting

• Align all content to the left (including headers, paragraphs and images).
• Use bullets, Increase Index button in WIDGET, or the indent style, not spaces, to indent text.

Do's and Don'ts

• Don't use smart quotes (curly quotes). Use only straight quotes. Also, avoid special characters that may not be available in HTML.
• Use bold to highlight words as phrases when appropriate. Do not use italics, which can be difficult to read on the screen.
• Do not use all caps. This is the online equivalent of SHOUTING.
• Do not underline. Underlining words suggests a hyperlink.
• Do not rely on variations of font size or color. Font size and color are all defined by the college's core style sheet.

Dealing With Links

• Link in context. Avoid self-referential terms like "Click here " and "follow this link. "
  • An example of linking in context is: "We have put together a web development checklist to help you develop an effective web presence."
• Do not link to outside pages from the navigation bar. Instead, create a page that summarizes what will be found on the outside site and link to it from there.

Content Delivery Format

• When submitting content to the Office of the Web Editor, please send the content in Word or plain text. It is also helpful to provide paper versions to verify the format of the text and for proofreading.

Use of Images

• Avoid using complex graphics and photo collages that take forever to download.
• Keep page sizes small.
• Graphics should be kept to a minimum and multimedia effects should only be used when they truly add to the reader's understanding of the information.
• Align images left with a 1 pixel border.
• Resize images in an image editing program (or forward them to the Web Editor) instead WIDGET to decrease their file size.

Questions, Comments, Suggestions?

If you have questions about SUNY Plattsburgh web policies, or want to learn more about how to write for the web, please contact:

Office of the Web Editor
Daniel J.S. Lewis, Web Editor
Phone: (518) 564-3977