Writing Guidelines

Welcome to the inaugural post of my BD and Marketing Blog for Professional Marketing Services. Consider this a "note from a friend." Each week, I'll post articles that interesting, informative, or important to your jobs. I will also take you behind the curtain of marketing/BD for professional services, to keep you educated and motivated in your client relations. And I will try to give you a glimpse inside my brain at the odd and sometimes amazing connections that are made there. [You don't have to be crazy to love marketing, but it helps!]

So, "Hi!" to everyone. Drop me a line sometime to let me know how you are doing, what you need, and what you are up to. The Blog is for YOU - please help me give you what you need/want to see. Until then, here are the Things You Need to Know for this week.

Just as you all have to follow standards and guidelines in submitting your deliverables to various clients and agencies, marketing and BD has standards and guidelines. Most companies have writing, style, and graphics guidelines specific to their company, or have adopted a particular edition of the AP Style guide. In either case, get to know your company's practices. Following them not only makes editing easier, it gives a consistency to your company's materials that clients recognize and appreciate.

Here are a couple of items that tend to trip us up:

Capitalization - avoid unnecessary capitals. Proper names and formal titles are capitalized when used as the name and title; almost everything else is not. If someone served as the project manager, then it is not capitalized. If they are Project Manager Jane Smith, then it is capitalized. In the case of reports, an environmental assessment is not capitalized, but the Lower Stanton River Environmental Assessment is capitalized, as it is the formal title of the report.

Acronyms - Acronyms and abbreviations for government agencies should be spelled out the first time they are used in the document. Several companies use ONLY the acronym in their employees' resumes and the project descriptions, because it is likely that the acronym would be used (and spelled out) MUCH earlier in a proposal document than the resumes/projects. This is a time-saving practice!

In the case of technologies that are widely recognized by their abbreviation, use that in all references: GPS, GIS, CADD, JPEG, PDF, etc.

Agencies commonly known by their acronym can be used with or without first spelling them out (FEMA, NOAA, EPA, DoD, etc.) These could be regional, as well, such as CDOT in Colorado -- you would not need to spell out CDOT in a CDOT submittal.

Numbers and dimensions/units - Spell out numbers under 10... except as part of dimensions, distances, or addresses. For example, "He has more than six years of experience..." but "he built a 16-by-9-inch box." All unites are spelled out (inches, feet, foot-long, percent, etc.), without the use of symbols (no ", ', or %). If the number begins a sentence, spell it out.

Ensure/Assure/Insure - these words, and all of their forms, are liability words that should be avoided. They implay a guarantee of action or result, which you might not fully control. Rewriting the sentence that has any of these words in it usually involves identifying an action or desired result and focusing on that. For example, "We will perform quality checks prior to each submittal to ensure they comply with ODOT standards," would become "We will perform quality checks to confirm compliance with ODOT standards." Or better: "We will check that deliverables comply with ODOT standards."


What are your common standards/guidelines? Or pet peeves?

Make it a great week!