Tisch Library Style Guide

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This style guide is for anyone creating, adding, or editing content for the Tisch Library website. Please refer to it to learn how to format and structure your writing and the elements within it, such as the language conventions, hyperlinks, images, PDFs, etc.

Our Guiding Principles | Things to Do | Things to Avoid | Web Style Guide | Writing Style Guide | Tufts-specific Style Guide

Our Guiding Principles

  • Write content that guides our users and invites them to engage with us. Our voice is:
    • Friendly
    • Respectful
    • Knowledgeable
    • Trustworthy
    • Accessible
    • Helpful
    • Human
  • Write in plain language, with no jargon or formality, no slang or idioms.
  • Write content that is welcoming and accessible to all audiences regardless of their demographics, cultural background, or disability status.
  • Keep content up-to-date, relevant, and accurate.
  • Write content that provides options and opportunities, instead of rules and permissions.
  • Empower our students, faculty, and staff so they can use our services and tools to get their work done and discover new ideas.

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Things to Do

Use Inclusive Language

We are committed to making all individuals feel welcome and safe in our virtual and physical spaces. We ask that you think carefully about the words you use while describing people, their identities, and geographies, and that you always use inclusive language when you write for the web. For more information and examples, please refer to: WGBH Inclusive Language Guidelines and the Diversity Style Guide.

Write for the User First

Before you start writing or editing your content, ask yourself:

  • Who is going to read this content?
  • What do they need to know?
  • What are they trying to accomplish?
  • If I were the user reading this, what would my response be? Could I follow the directions? Complete the task? 
  • Why should the user care? What's in it for them?
  • Does this content belong on this page or might there be a better place for it?

Don’t assume readers know the structure of the library or know and understand library jargon. Write for the user with the least amount of knowledge about a topic.

Be human. Imagine your audience and write as if you were talking to them one-on-one, with the authority of someone who can actively help.  

Put the Most Important Information at the Top

Users tend to scan web pages until they find what they need. Most people will only read 20 percent of a page so use the “inverted pyramid” technique when you write.  Put the most important information at the top of a page. That’s the section users are most likely to read.

Break up your Content

Users ignore huge blocks of text, it’s that simple.

Tips for breaking up your content to make it easier to skim and less intimidating:

  • Add useful sub-headings to help people scan through the page.
  • Use bulleted lists to break up the text when appropriate.
  • If using a list where the order matters, such as directions or a sequence, use a numbered list.
  • Be concise. Write shorter sentences and paragraphs and use short sections to break up information into manageable chunks.

Address Users Directly

Use pronouns to speak directly to users, addressing them as “you” when possible. If necessary, define “you” at the beginning of your page. And don’t be afraid to say “we” instead of “the library.”

Examples:

  • If you are unable to access one of our electronic resources, please email our Electronic Resources Management team. Your email will be answered within two hours.
  • You can contact us 24/7 via email.

When you are informing users about policy you may want to use 3rd person.  This makes it sound less accusatory.

For example, use this:

The Library reserves the right to block users who return items late.

vs.

You will be blocked if you return items late.

Use Active Voice

  • The active voice supports brevity, emphasizes who should act, and makes our content more engaging.
  • Using the passive voice de-emphasizes who should take action and tends to be wordier.

For example, instead of this:

Overdue fines must be paid by the borrower.

Write this:

The borrower must pay any overdue fines.

How to recognize passive voice:

If you insert “by zombies” after the verb and the sentence still makes sense, you’re using the passive voice.

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Things to Avoid

Jargon or Acronyms

Jargon and acronyms are often vague or unfamiliar to users and can lead to misinterpretation. If you feel an acronym or a jargon term must be used, be sure to explain what it means the first time you use it on a page.

Duplication

Duplicate content produces poor search results, confuses the user, and damages the credibility of our websites. If something is written once and links to relevant information easily and well, people are more likely to trust the content.

Before you publish something, check that the user need you’re trying to address has not already been covered.

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Web Style Guide

Create Helpful Hyperlinks

When creating hyperlinks, keep these tips in mind: 

  • Write descriptive and true link text — explain where users are going and why.  This will make our site more accessible and help everyone.
  • Meaningful links should stand alone and help users with scanning the page.
  • Use keywords to describe the link’s destination — look at the destination page for context.
  • The link destination should fulfill the promise of your link text. For example, the link text should not read "contact [person's name]" if the link is a mailto:/email link. Instead, it should say "email [person's name]", so the user knows ahead of time that clicking on the link will likely result in their device opening their email client and creating a new email.
  • If linking to a PDF, indicate that. 
  • Don't create a hyperlink with the URL as the link text. The user should only know the link's URL once they've clicked on it.

Examples:

Instead of: This collection is available online here. Try: Browse this collection online.

For PDFs: Our pricing guide PDF provides estimates for various reproduction formats.

Use Photos to Add Interest

Photos add depth to what you are talking about and may provide greater context for users struggling with reading comprehension.  However, it is important to remember not to convey important information through images.

If you use an image, make sure you add alt text:

  • Adding alternative text to photos is a principle of web accessibility. Visually impaired users using screen readers will be read an alt attribute to better understand an on-page image.
  • The alt text describes the image to someone who cannot see it, so it is not merely a label. 
  • Alt tags will be displayed in place of an image if an image file cannot be loaded.
  • Alt tags provide better image context/descriptions to search engine crawlers, helping them to index an image properly.
  • Screen readers announce the presence of an image before reading the alt text, so do not write "image of" or "photo of" as part of your alt text.
  • Avoid using the same alt text for different images on the same page. If images in a similar context and/or close proximity have the same alt text, screen reader users may wonder whether or not they are the same image.

PDFS

Linking users to PDFs can make your content harder to use, and lead users down a dead end. The Nielsen Norman Group has done multiple studies on PDFs and has consistently found that users don’t like them and avoid reading them.

Avoid using PDFs for important information you’re trying to convey to users. Some supplementary information may make sense as a PDF — or something a user would need to print.

If you must link users to a PDF, be sure to let readers know. For example:

Our pricing guide (PDF) provides estimates for various reproduction formats.

All PDFs must be accessible, per Tufts' Digital Accessibility Policy. Web Team recommends taking the hour-long instructor-led training on creating accessible PDFs available in the Tufts Learning Center. The Tisch Document Delivery department also has more information on how to make your PDFs accessible.

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Writing Style Guide

Abbreviations and acronyms

  • Spell out abbreviations or acronyms the first time they are referenced on every page.
  • Widely recognized abbreviations or acronyms may be used if they are well known.

Examples

  • The Digital Design Studio (DDS) is a self-service creative space for the production of digital class projects and the exploration of digital media.
  • Find study materials for the ACT or SAT in our library catalog.

Bold/Italic/Underline

  • Only bold or italicize certain key words or short sentence fragments to show importance, emphasis, or a change. 
  • Italics can also be used for quotes.
  • Refrain from underlining individual words or entire sentences to avoid confusion with links. 

Capitalization

  • Capitalize proper nouns and beginnings of sentences.
  • Capitalize common nouns only when used as part of a specific name: Tisch Library, Eaton Lab (otherwise, lowercase library, lab).
  • Refrain from using all caps in a sentence.
  • Page titles & headings should follow Menu capitalization rules as written below.

Commas

If a comma does not help make clear what is being said, it should not be there. If omitting a comma could lead to confusion or misinterpretation, then use the comma.

Compositions

Capitalize the principal words in the names of books, movies, plays, poems, operas, songs, radio and TV programs, works of art, events, etc.

Use italics or quotes when writing about them online. 

Dates

  • Use numbers for dates
    • For example: January 2018
  • Use abbreviated month when used with a specific date.
    • For example: Jan. 2, 2018
  • Use an 's' without an apostrophe to indicate spans of decades or centuries. 
    • For example: the 1900s, the 1920s. 

Lists

  • Use bullet points when typing out a list that has more than three items, rather than putting the list within a line of text.

Menus

  • Capitalize the first word. All remaining words should be in lowercase (unless Capitalization rules apply).

News article titles

  • Capitalize all words in the titles of news articles, except for articles, prepositions, and conjunctions (unless they are the first word in the title).

Numerals 

  • Spell out one through nine.
  • Use numbers for 10 or above and whenever preceding a unit of measure or referring to ages of people, animals, events, or things. 
  • Use numbers for: Academic course numbers, addresses, centuries, dates, years and decades, decimals, percentages and fractions with numbers larger than 1, dimensions, distances, and monetary units. 
  • Spell out fractions less than one at the start of a sentence, in definite and casual uses.
  • Spell out a percentage if it is the first word of a sentence, rather than using a number.

Page titles & headings

  • Capitalize the first word, all remaining words should be lowercase (unless Capitalization rules apply).

Phone numbers 

  • Phone numbers should be written as: (123) 456-7890 

Spacing

  • Use a single space after a period.

Times

  • Use: Lowercase am or pm, with no period.
  • Use: Lowercase noon and midnight.
  • Do not use 12 noon or 12 midnight or 12pm or 12am (redundant). Use noon or midnight.
  • Do not use 8am in the morning. Use 8am.
  • Do not use o'clock with a.m. or p.m.
  • Do not use dashes in place of "to" or "through" or "and" or "until" with times of day.

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Tufts-specific Style Guide

Here are tips for Tufts-specific terms and other terms you may encounter more frequently.

Titles

  • Capitalize formal titles when used immediately before a name.
    • Dean of Engineering, Jane Dow
  • Lowercase formal titles when used alone or in constructions that set them off from a name by commas.
    • Tony Monaco, president of Tufts University, has created new programs.
  • Use lowercase at all times for terms that are job descriptions rather than formal titles.​​
    • Michael James is the head of the writing and humanistic studies department.
  • Named professorships and fellowships are capitalized even following the person’s name. Use title case:
    • Jane Dow, Snell Chair in Applied Developmental Science
  • Treat all other academic titles as formal titles: capitalized when used immediately before a name.

Academic Years and Terms

  • Terms designating academic years and terms are written in lowercase:
    • senior, first-year student, fall semester

Class titles

  • Capitalize the name of classes.
  • Course titles and lectures are capitalized and put in quotes.
    • June teaches Literature 101.
    • Professor John Doe is teaching “The Art of Guitar Playing” this semester.

Class Year

Refer to the Guide to School and Class Abbreviations

  • John Smith, A16
  • John Smith, MSIM18

When referring to someone’s year of graduation, capitalize “class.”

  • John Smith, Class of 2000, was in town for a lecture.

Majors

  • Majors are not capitalized. 

Degrees

The preferred format is to spell out the degree. Capitalize an individual's specific degree, but do not capitalize when referring to a degree generically.

  • John Smith holds a Master of Arts in English.
  • They are working toward their bachelor’s degree.

If abbreviating degrees, use capitalized initials with periods: A.B., S.B.

Proper Nouns

Capitalize the full, formal names of:

  • Departments
  • Colleges and schools
  • Offices
  • Centers
  • Institutions
  • Buildings
  • Residential houses
  • Academic associations
  • Libraries
  • Programs
  • Awards
  • Scholarships

However, do not capitalize names used informally, in the second reference. 

  • When calling the center, or the department.

The exception is to capitalize College, School, and University when referring to Tufts.

  • The University changed its policies.

Tisch Library

Always capitalize Tisch Library.

Tufts’ libraries

  • Do not capitalize ‘libraries’ in Tufts’ libraries. 
  • Always use an apostrophe after Tufts’ when referring to multiple libraries within Tufts. 

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A portion of this content was adapted from the Harvard Library Writing Guide and from the Hirsh Health Sciences Library Web Style Guide.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact tischwebteam@elist.tufts.edu

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