Notes for CIM Staff, Authors, Editors and Writers

The Chartered Institute of Marketing Editorial style guide

Notes for CIM staff, authors, editors and writers

Version 7

1 December 2004

1.0 House style

2.0 Brand positioning, target audience and tone

3.0 Structure

4.0 Consistency

General guidance

Abbreviation

Acronyms

Ampersands (&)

Appendices

Apostrophes

Brackets

Bullet list

Capitalisation of words

Contractions

Countries

Direct speech

Document structure

First/third person

Font

Footnotes

Foreign words

Gender free language

Headings

Hyphenation and dashes

Jargon

Letter layout

Line spacing

Margins

Numerals

Punctuation

Quotation marks and highlighting text

References

Singular and plural

Spelling

Tenses

Text justification

That and which

Titles

Titles of books/newspapers/magazines
1.0 House style

Every organisation is keen to impress the people and businesses it deals with. One method of doing this is by planning and producing an organisational ‘house style’ which all staff must follow when producing documents. This ensures consistency in document layout and appearance.

This guide has been developed for both in-house and freelance use. It aims to help bring about a cohesive approach, reinforcing the corporate brand and providing a practical framework for the development of all communications.

Any document originating from CIM should be presented in-line with these style guidelines. Having a consistent style improves the branding of CIM, gives documents a more professional appearance and helps greatly in preparing them for print/web display. This document outlines the main requirements.

All staff, CIM volunteers and freelance writers working for CIM should become familiar with and use the following guidelines for house style.

If you have any general queries about the requirements outlined here please contact the Corporate Brand Manager, currently:

Annabel Pritchard

+44 (0) 1628 427 002

2.0 Brand positioning, target audience and tone

Brand positioning

Our primary objectives are to:

· Raise awareness of marketing and its best practice

· Position CIM as the leading authority on marketing

· Position CIM as forward-looking, innovative and a leader in its field

Target audience

CIM has an extremely diverse target audience:

· CIM members and students

· Marketers and other professionals wishing to increase their understanding of marketing theory and practice

· Marketers seeking ideas for introducing change in their organisations

· Marketers seeking ideas and fresh thinking to aid personal development

Tone

The tone and style of your copy will be dependent upon your audience. However, all CIM documents should use a tone that is professional, contemporary and inspiring.

As a broad guide, the style we are aiming for should:

· Be lively, stimulating and relevant

· Clear and informative

· Avoid ‘corporate speak’ and jargon

· Speak to the reader as an equal, in a personal way, without being overfamiliar

· Not be chatty, stuffy or arrogant

· Use the language they use, without being sloppy or resorting to slang

· Use the active rather than passive voice: “The centre acknowledges” rather than “it is acknowledged by the centre that”

3.0 Structure

When presenting an argument, a slide show, or writing a report, it can be helpful to think carefully about what you are trying to say and how you will communicate this. Although not always appropriate, the use of the SCQA technique can help provide such documents with focus. It is a technique that helps you structure and present your case in a clear way, so that your audience can quickly gain an understanding of your argument.

SCQA stands for:

Situation

A concise statement of an issue or observation

Complication

Any complicating factors or additional information relevant to the situation

Question

A formulation of the fundamental question

Answer

Proposals to address the situation

A simple example might be as follows:

Situation: Boy meets girl and falls madly in love.

Complication: Rival comes along and takes girl away.

Question: What should boy do?

Answer: Boy punches rival and keeps girl (or girl punches rival and keeps boy).

Alternatively:

Situation: As we know, our objective for next year is extremely ambitious - to increase growth in the domestic market by 15 per cent.

Complication: As we also know, major barriers to growth in this market exist.

Question: What should our strategy be to ensure we achieve our objective?

Answer: Our strategy should be…

The logical progression in the examples above is clear. By starting with the Situation, the writer leads the reader into the ‘story’, without them left guessing as to what the background is or why the question is being asked.

The purpose of setting out the document as an SCQA is to make sure that you know exactly what Question it is you are trying to answer. Once you have the Question, everything else falls into place relatively easily.

The technique forces the writer to draw from their mind only the information that is relevant to the reader. It also helps the writer to deal fully with the question – answering the questions a reader is likely to have. Presented in this way, it is also easy for the reader to follow the line of your argument or report.

For a full, detailed explanation of the technique, please read Barbara Minto’s book, The Pyramid Principle, or the FT article by Barbara Minto in the library. 4.0 Consistency

Writers are expected to:

· Use plain English (avoid jargon, define technical terms, abbreviations, acronyms, etc)

· Avoid long sentences and paragraphs

· Use bullet points to emphasise key points

· Use sub-sections to structure the document clearly

· Keep footnotes to a minimum. If required, provide a reference listing

· Keep quotations short and to a minimum (depending on the nature of the research)

Abbreviation

Abbreviations should be avoided. We should always use full text, eg ‘marketing communications’ not ‘marcoms’.

Acronyms

Unless an acronym is very well known, such as the CBI or NATO, it should be spelt in full the first time with the abbreviation in brackets; the abbreviation can then be used subsequently. This also applies to use of The Chartered Institute of Marketing/CIM.

An example of this would be ‘The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) is the world’s largest professional body for marketers. At CIM we believe that…’

Our organisational name should be written as ‘The Chartered Institute of Marketing’ or CIM – not ‘the Chartered Institute of Marketing’, ‘Chartered Institute of Marketing’ or ‘the CIM’.

There should be no full stops between the letters of an acronym, eg PR not P.R.

Ampersands (&)

The word ‘and’ should be used instead of ‘&’ or ‘+’ unless the symbol is part of a company name, such as Alliance & Leicester, Ernst & Young or Marks & Spencer.

Appendices

Label consecutively as Appendix 1, Appendix 2, Appendix 3, etc. Separate from main document by single sheet labelled Appendix/Appendices.

Apostrophes

Use for contractions – ie when a letter is missing; didn’t, it’s, isn’t.

Use to show possessive - eg the boy’s hat, the dog’s bone.

Common mistakes:

· Remember the difference between the possessive pronoun ‘its’ and the pronoun/verb ‘it’s’, eg “Hooray, it’s Friday” as against “I put the file in its proper place”

· There is no such word as ‘its’’

· Plurals of acronyms do not have an apostrophe, eg ‘CDs’ not ‘CD’s’

· Refer to years as the 1990s or the ‘90s, not to the 1990’s or the ‘90’s

Brackets

If a whole sentence is within brackets, put the full stop inside.

Bullet list

Lists identified with bullet points are very useful as a means of breaking up complex copy and for presenting key information. Try not to use them too frequently or they will interrupt the flow of the narrative. Also try to avoid bullet lists that have secondary or tertiary bullet lists within them. If you have to do this, make sure the secondary and tertiary lists are indented so that readers see that the information is subsidiary. Consider using numbering, eg 1.1, 1.11

The sentence before any bullet list should end with a colon (:). The first letter of the first word in each bullet point should be uppercase. There is no full stop at the end of each point, even at the end of the list. The same rule applies even if there is punctuation in each bullet point.

The ‘design’ of each bullet is as follows:

· The bullet point itself is round filled in (as here)

· The bullet position is not indented, ie it is left justified

· The text is indented by 1cm, ie there is 1 cm between the edge of the page and the first letter of text

· There is no space between the line preceding the bullet list and the list itself

· No full stops are used at the end of any point

For colour printed, designed documents, the bullet should be a colour that matches the document (eg blue if the document headings are blue).

Capitalisation of words

Words should not be capitalised unless they are a name of a person, company or other entity eg Boston Consulting Group, John Smith.

We should not capitalise words such as marketing, sales promotion or portfolio analysis.

As outlined in the headings section, only the first word in a heading should be capitalised, eg ‘Capitalisation of words’. The only exception to this rule is for CIM qualifications and training courses, where capitals should be used for the appropriate words, eg ‘How to use Direct Mail Effectively’ not ‘How to use direct mail effectively’.

Use capitals when it is the organisation’s (college, church, hospital, government department, public body, etc) full and proper title.

Use House of Commons, House of Lords, subsequently the House.

Use The European Commission, subsequently the Commission.

Use capitals for definite places. For example: The Hague, Germany, United States. Also use capitals for vague but recognised geographical or political areas. For example: the Middle East, Western Europe, North of England. But ‘the north’ takes lower case.

All seasons take an initial lower case letter, months take upper case.

Specific examples:

· We use internet not Internet

· We use world wide web not World Wide Web

· We use website not web site, Web Site or WWW site

· We use online not on-line or on line

· We use email rather than E-Mail, e-mail, E:Mail or E:mail

Contractions

Points are omitted in common abbreviations, for example ie (that is), eg (for example), am, pm, etc, NB. The contractions of eg and ie should be preceded by a comma and a space.

Countries (especially UK, GB and Britain)

The United Kingdom specifically refers to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Great Britain is England, Scotland and Wales. The British Isles includes the Republic of Ireland. It is preferable to refer to the United Kingdom over Britain, Great Britain etc. Take care not to offend by using England or English when you mean Britain or British.

Direct speech

People we quote should be allowed to speak in their own style but the writer should be sensitive; do not expose someone to ridicule for dialect or grammatical error.

Document structure

Documents should be structured as follows:

· Title page (including copyright statement)

· Contents page

· Body text

· References or bibliography (if applicable)

· Index (if applicable)

· Appendices (if applicable)

Email (for CIM staff only)

Email should be written remembering that you cannot convey tone of voice. It should be as respectful as a letter, but not as formal in style. All outgoing emails should be written in black, Arial 10 point font. Replies in blue (unless in plain text). Email sign offs should follow this colour format, and be attached to first-time outgoing email (not necessary for replies):

Full name (grey)

Title (grey)

The Chartered Institute of Marketing (grey)

www.cim.co.uk/link (to your part of the business) (blue)

Tel: +44 (0) 1628 427xxx (grey)

Mob: +44 (0) xxx xxxxxx (grey)

Name of current agenda: (red) www.shapetheagenda.com (blue)

Visit CIM online: (red) www.cim.co.uk (blue)

Example:

Annabel Pritchard

Corporate Brand Manager

The Chartered Institute of Marketing

www.cim.co.uk/pressoffice

Tel: +44 (0) 1628 427002

Mob: +44 (0) 7712 654520

The measure of success: www.shapetheagenda.com

Visit CIM online: www.cim.co.uk

First/third person

The type of document being produced will determine the use of first or third person. Care must be taken to ensure that this is not mixed. Personal letters may be written in the first person, most other business documents will be written in the third person.

Font

All documents (inc Word, PowerPoint etc) produced by CIM staff should be typed in Arial. Word documents should use 11 point font for the main body text. The exceptions to this sizing would be in headings and references, which are covered elsewhere in this document.

There may be specific exceptions to this:

· If writing to a visually impaired person, you should use a 16 point Arial

· CIM marketing materials produced by a designer should use Helvetica

Footnotes

Use 10 point font. Number consecutively (1,2,3, etc.) Separate from the main body text by using a short, left-justified line.

Foreign words

Try not to use foreign words and phrases. Try to use English alternatives where available. If you have to use a foreign word, eg in a legal/financial document, then use italics, with roman translation in brackets if it is needed. Common foreign words do not need roman translation, such as ad hoc, bona fide and rendezvous.

Gender-free language

Gender-free language should be used whenever possible. Examples are: workforce or staffing instead of manpower. Don’t say ‘his’ for men and women; use ‘his or her’ or a different sentence construction.

Headings

Commonly used headings are main heading, shoulder heading and paragraph heading.

Document heading

Document headings should be left aligned, typed in bold, in point size 20, with the first letter of the first word in capitalised and the rest of the sentence in lower case. They should appear one third of the way down the page. The document heading may be followed by a sub heading, which should be typed in normal font (not bold) in point size 16. Documents should also carry the date in DD Month YYYY format eg 2 June 2004 not 2nd June 04 etc.