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Tone of voice

Whether we’re describing courses, writing brochures and online articles, or tweeting, our tone of voice is one of our most important tools.

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Best practice

Our words capture our brand personality. You should use the brand personality as a guide when you’re writing content. Our content shouldn't be overly formal, boring, boastful or institutional.

Use this guidance when you're writing content that will represent our brand:

  • Clear and simple words and phrases
  • Snappy sentences of less than 25 words
  • Contractions where appropriate eg: it's, we're
  • Real-world examples
  • Positive language
  • Active voice

Our audience wants us to be clear and concise. Try to get to the point as quickly and easily as possible. For example, we wouldn’t say, “the staff will be able to assist you in choosing” — we'd just say “we can help you choose”.

Things to avoid

It's important to think about what we don’t want in our content, too:

  • Stuffy, old-fashioned language
  • Overly complex words and phrases
  • Words that contradict our brand values

Our voice should be active, not passive, whenever possible. In sentences written in the active voice, the subject of the sentence performs the action. In sentences written in the passive voice, the subject of the sentence receives the action.

The best way to demonstrate the difference is with an example:

✓ We will develop the workforce of tomorrow
✘ The workforce of tomorrow will be developed by us

Adjusting our tone

Our brand personality is the same, no matter which audience we're addressing.

However, we adjust our tone depending on who we're talking to. We should emphasise or tone it down to suit the particular audience.

You should consider:

  • How does your audience expect to be spoken to?
  • Where will they see your copy?
  • What's important to them?
  • How do you want them to react to what you're saying?
  • Are you writing as you would talk to them?
  • Are you using language they'll understand or relate to?

Here is some guidance on how to adapt your tone for specific audiences:

Undergraduate audiences

  • Be positive and enthusiastic - assure the audience we’ll help them achieve their potential.
  • Keep copy punchy - short sentences and statements make a bigger impact.
  • Be excited and energised - think about the possibilities we could open up to your audience.

Postgraduate audiences

  • Use a more sophisticated tone and specialised language, where appropriate.
  • Include relevant terminology to emphasise our expertise but keep it concise and jargon-free.

Undergraduate and postgraduate audiences

  • Be succinct
  • Use stories and examples that show the audience we can give them the edge in employability.
  • Include real-world examples to get your message across in a relatable way.
  • Emphasise our expertise and the professional possibilities we can offer.

Alumni audiences

  • Keep the tone similar to the one we use for postgraduates.
  • Use more sophisticated language and specialist terminology, when appropriate.
  • Try to be inclusive — think of the reader as a lifetime member of the University family.

International audiences

  • Adopt a welcoming tone — we want the audience to feel at home and reassured that we'll support them.
  • Use confident language and examples that showcase our reputation for quality courses and teaching.
  • Avoid use of negatives that may cause confusion — instead of “You cannot apply without completing the form,” use “Complete the application form to apply.”
  • Use simple terms and keep your copy to the point. Use contractions with care.
  • Avoid slang, colloquialisms, idioms and jargon.

Corporate and partner audiences

  • Use a similar tone to postgraduate and alumni content — more sophisticated language and terminology.
  • Adopt a more formal tone, more suited to a business or corporate audience.
  • Emphasise how we innovate and shape the world around us.

 

 

Style guide

For the most part, our house style follows the modern and widely used grammatical rules of the Guardian Style Guide.

House style

An important thing to remember about grammar is there isn’t always a ‘right’ answer. Like language, grammar evolves to suit the way we communicate.

You’ll probably notice there are things we do differently to other publications, including the Guardian. We’ve detailed some of these styles below.

Query/rule
Academic titles (capitals) Capitalise when applied to a name (eg Professor John Smith) but lower case in general (eg ‘contact a professor’ or ‘team of professors’)
Academic titles (format) Title/Name/Role. Eg Dr John Smith, Head of Department.
Where job role is professor, this can be Name/Role. Eg: John Smith, Professor of [X]
Acronyms Use full title/bracketed acronym in first instance (eg: Centre for Aviation Transport and the Environment (CATE)). Then just acronym (no brackets) after that
Addresses Our registered address is: Manchester Metropolitan University, All Saints Building, Manchester, M1 5AL. When writing the address of the University, it should always follow this format
Advisers vs advisors Never advisors, always advisers
Alt text (for images)

It's a legal requirement to add alt text to every image. Alt text describes image to users who can’t see them. It also benefits search engine optimisation (SEO). All components will have an alt text field to complete

A good alt text description is:

  • meaningful - it has to make sense as a phrase or sentence, not just be keywords
  • concise - no more than 125 characters (which is the cut off for many screen readers)
  • specific - 'Geoff Hurst scoring a goal in the 1966 World Cup final against Germany' is better than 'Man scores goal in football game'
  • contextual - descriptions shouldn't just repeat the surrounding text, but reflect the themes of the page
Never start with ‘Image of...’ or ‘Photo of....’. If you can naturally include the keyword, do but don't artificially force it. One keyword mention in alt text on the page is enough
Attribution of quotes Every quote must be attributed. The format of the attribution should be:
  • First name Last name, current role title (if appropriate), link to the University
For example:
  • Robert Smith, founder of The Cure, guest lecturer in business and finance
  • Sally Gunnell, BBC trainee, Digital and UX degree apprentice
  • Liz Windsor, BSc Mechanical Engineering
Don't include information which dates the attribution - such as when someone studied
Alumni Lower case. Plural mixed or all male group is alumni, plural all female group is alumnae, singular male is alumnus, singular female is alumna
Ampersands (and slashes) Please avoid using these in general body copy where ‘and’ will suffice
Americanisms Always ensure you are using UK spelling and not US (eg: ‘scrutinise’ not ‘scrutinize’) and that spellcheck is done in English (United Kingdom)
Among and amongst Always use ‘among’, never ‘amongst’, this also applies to ‘while’ / ‘whilst’
A-level Upper case ‘A’, hyphen and lower case ‘l’
Bold Avoid using for emphasis
Brooks vs Birley Only refer to this as Brooks building (note case) not Birley building/campus
Bullet points First letter should not be capitalised if they are continuation of a sentence
Bullet points You do not need a full stop in your bullet point if it is short and/or without any other punctuation (eg if it has a comma, it becomes a sentence and so needs a full stop)
Button labels Button labels are important because they help users to decide whether to follow links. They also need to work for screen readers, so a button label needs to describe what it’s linking to:
  • Describe what is being linked to or the action being performed
  • Match the title/subject of the destination content
  • Start button copy with a verb, if it makes sense to do so
  • Two to four words should be the norm. More if needed, by exception
  • Use sentence case. No full stop
Never: Click here or More information. Avoid: Learn more. Good: Register for updates, Buy now
Campus Lower case (eg Manchester campus). Remove reference to All Saints campus or Birley campus, refer to Manchester campus only
Capitalisation Avoid using for emphasis
Contractions Should be used regularly (not always) to soften copy (eg ‘we’re’ instead of ’we are’ or ‘there’s’ instead of ‘there is’)
Coronavirus / COVID-19 Be careful to distinguish between:
  • Coronavirus, which describes a flu-like type of virus
  • The particular strain of coronavirus causing the pandemic, which is the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)
  • The disease caused by infection with SARS-CoV-2, which is COVID-19
  • You will normally only want to use coronavirus or COVID-19, they are popularly understood terms, but they are not completely interchangeable
Courses For all courses (UG and PGT) say ‘courses’ as opposed to ‘programmes’. When referring to a collection including both courses and programmes use ‘programmes’
Courses (format) Brackets around (Hons) (note capital ‘H’ and lower case ‘ons’) and Combined Honours (capitals)
Course length Use full years instead of months eg: one year instead of 12 months, three years instead of 36 months
Date 15 January 2018 (no need to use 15th)
Degree apprenticeships Cap up when:
  • Referring to Manchester Met’s offer (eg: our Degree Apprenticeship courses)
  • Referring to a particular course (eg: the Architects Degree Apprenticeship)
  • Giving a specific person’s job title (eg: Sarah Townsend, UX Degree Apprentice at MC2)
Use lower case when:
  • Referring to degree apprenticeships in general use as a common noun (eg: you can choose to study a traditional degree or a degree apprenticeship)
  • Describing a job role generally (eg: Sarah is a degree apprentice)
Degree types BSc, MEng, PhD, PGDip etc – upper and lower case, no spacing or punctuation
Department names Upper case initials when stating name eg ‘Department of History’ then lower case for general reference eg ‘the department is home to …’
Email links

Mailto links allow users to send an email from a HTML page, without having to copy and paste the address into an email client.

Please note:

  • this only works when a user has a default email client set up on their device
  • a user may want to copy the email address and add it to a note or send it to a contact

Use a mailto link next to the email address, and keep the address itself as plain text:

Email us at Immigration@mmu.ac.uk

This way, users can go straight to sending an email using a mailto link, and people who want to copy the email address can do that too.
Enrol British spelling: enrol, enrolled, enrolling, enrolment (note use of L and double L)
En-suite Not en suite or ensuite
Exclamation points Try to avoid and NEVER use doubles (yes, even on social media)
Extracurricular One word, no hyphenation
EG and IE Use eg or eg: with no full stops, this is preferential to ie
Etc Avoid if possible, no full point
Faculties Always singular entities (’eg: ‘The faculty is/has (not are/have)’
Faculty Capitalised when referring specifically to one of our faculties (eg: ‘Faculty of Art and Humanities’)
Fields of expertise Should not be capitalised when alone (eg: ‘mathematics’)
Full-time Hyphenated, capitalised at start only (eg not Full-Time)
GCSE grades GCSEs in England have changed – the new 9 to 1 grading replaces A* to G, with 9 being the highest grade. 4 is the standard pass score. These should be spelled out in numbers, not words – as per the Department for Education style guide
Headings - punctuation Headings and subheadings should not end with a full stop
  • A heading is the main headline at the top of a page and will usually be marked up as a H1 in the HTML / CMS
  • Subheadings can be either the title of a component or text section heading and will usually be marked up in HTML as H3-6
Some components will include supporting text beneath the title. This should have normal punctuation, including full stops at the end of sentences
  • The supporting text will usually be <p> in the HTML / normal in the CMS. It may also be H2
eg:
  • Blackburn Rovers make stunning return to the Premier League - HEADING
  • Mowbray hails remarkable reversal of fortunes. - SUPPORTING TEXT
  • Brereton hat-trick seals win - SUBHEADING
Honours UK spelling (with U), upper case initials eg ‘An Honours degree in …’
Hyphenated words

Use one word where possible: timeframe, timeshare, chatroom

This approach is more accessible and easier for screen readers

Use hyphens to form short compound adjectives, eg: three-year course, two-year partnership
Italic Avoid using for emphasis
Laboratories vs labs Use laboratories (the shortened form can be used where appropriate to the audience)
Library For the Library (as in the service) we should treat it the same as we do the University (where we capitalise U as a proper noun when referring to our University)
Links Set inline links in rich text to open the destination content in an appropriate way:
  • Links off the site to external content or pages should open in a new tab/window
  • Links within the site to internal content or other pages should open in the same tab
Masters Lower case and with no apostrophe in line with modern writing (eg ‘apply for a masters degree’ or ‘a masters in history’)
Measurements Use metric and write ‘metres’ in full
Manchester Metropolitan or Manchester Met?

The preferred naming convention for the website is Manchester Met. But for international audiences we use Manchester Metropolitan to avoid translation errors.

In offline materials, we always state the full name – Manchester Metropolitan University – and then Manchester Met.

Manchester Metropolitan University should be used throughout legal or regulatory content.

Mcr Met is used in some campaigns and social media.

Only use the following full legal name when it’s paired with the coat of arms: ‘The Manchester Metropolitan University’.

Before you use the coat of arms, please get approval from brand@mmu.ac.uk.

We never use MMU.
Modules Never use ‘modules’ – always refer to ‘course units’
Money symbols Use £ when talking sums, ‘m’ when abbreviating millions in tables not text and pound when talking about currency eg ‘A 350m building …’
North West Capitalise both words, no hyphen and do not break over lines (includes alternates like South West etc)
Numbering One to ten should be written out in words, 11 onwards use numbers. Include comma in 4 or 5 digit numbers (eg 3,000)
Online vs virtual We aren’t using ‘online’ anymore, use ‘virtual’ instead
Open day or visit day

Lower case in copy (eg ‘We hold three open days a year …’, title case (Open Day) when referring to an actual event eg ‘Come along to our June Open Day …’

Visit days are for people who hold an offer with us
Option vs optional Never optional units, always option units
Paragraphs Line breaks should be between paragraphs
Paragraphs Avoid isolated words on lines and do not split hyphenated phrases over lines
Part-time Hyphenated, capitalised at start only (eg not Part-Time)
Percentages Always use the percentage symbol
PGR Programmes For research degrees (PGR) always use ‘programmes’ not ‘courses’
Postgraduate Lower case (unless at the start of a sentence) and always one word without a hyphen
Quotation marks Double quotation marks should be used only for direct quotes. Single quotation marks should be used for quotes within quotes. Single quotation marks should be used when introducing or referencing a philosophical or theological idea
Referencing with footnotes or asterisks

The asterisk/footnote is placed immediately after the word to which the asterisk/footnote citation refers (and after any punctuation marks). For example: To learn more about what makes Manchester Met the 9th most popular university in the UK,* please visit our website.

If the asterisk/footnote citation refers to a paragraph, then place the asterisk/footnote number immediately after the final punctuation mark. If you require more than two citations, then you should use footnotes. Otherwise please use asterisks.

Please note: this referencing guidance is only applicable for marketing materials and corporate reports
Scholarship or studentship These are very similar, but used in different contexts and mean different things. These are rules of thumb, not iron laws
  • Scholarships can be paid to both undergraduates and postgraduates
  • Undergraduate scholarships often help with tuition fees and/or living costs, but aren’t usually fully funded – they contribute to the recipient’s costs but don’t cover all of them
  • Postgraduate scholarships tend to be fully funded – sufficient to cover course and living costs. They are not usually linked to a specific project, but can be. They can also be partially funded
  • Studentships tend to be paid to postgraduates and will normally include payments towards both course fees and living costs. They are sometimes attached to specific projects, but the term can refer to any funding sufficient to complete a PhD. Funding that doesn’t cover a full PhD could be referred to as a partial studentship
Shared identities/communities The use of a capital letter indicates a culturally shared identity/community for people. Racial and ethnic groups are designated by proper nouns
Social media (account titles and hashtags) When you are writing a hashtag or account name, use CamelCase. This makes it easier for readers to distinguish the boundaries of the word - for example distinguishing #McrMetUni  from #mcrmetuni - as well as giving screen readers a pronunciation clue
Spacing Always single spacing, never double spacing
Students’ Union Students’ Union OR Manchester Metropolitan University Students’ Union, when talking about our University, but students’ union when referring more generally
Subject titles Keep lower case unless referring to a language: You will need GCSE passes in English, mathematics and science. An expert in the field of mathematics. Course titles can be capitalised when specifically referring to an actual course eg ‘The BSc (Hons) Economics offers …’
Terms Capitalised, numerical in titles (eg: ‘Term 1’), but ‘one to ten’ rule in body copy
Time format Use 12-hour clock, long dashes, colons (not decimals) and no space between the last digit and am/pm (lower case). Eg: ‘4:00pm – 6:00pm’
Titles

Titles of books/films/songs/papers – use uppercase initials and italics for all eg ‘A Christmas Carol ..’ Titles for pages should be focused on the action that users can take on the page.

For example, Book your open day place. Keep the verb tense consistent: Book, not Booking
Title case In the title case, we only cap up the principal words – not the articles, conjunctions and prepositions, unless they start the title, eg: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, not: Snow White And The Seven Dwarves
Top-ups Hyphenated and lower case (eg: top-ups)
Undergraduate Lower case (unless at the start of a sentence) and always one word without a hyphen
Underlining Avoid using for emphasis
University This is ONLY to be capitalised when referring specifically to our University
Units Can be capitalised when specifically referring to a course unit only eg: Encountering Art
URLs No ‘www’. No slashes or full stops at the end. (eg: ‘mmu.ac.uk/marketing’ not ‘mmu.ac.uk/marketing/’)
UK Use UK, not U.K and no need to write in full
US Use US, not USA
While and whilst Always use ‘while’, never ‘whilst’, this also applies to ‘among’ / ‘amongst’
Years (academic) 2019/20 not 2019-20
Years (body copy) Use ‘one to ten’ rule in body copy (eg: ‘three-year degree course’ or ‘in year one…’)
Years (decades) 1960s, not ‘60s or sixties. However for age, use sixties (eg: ‘she is in her sixties’)
Years (span) Use hyphens to illustrate a span of years, (eg: ‘2009-12’)
Years (titles) Capitalised, numerical in titles (eg: ‘Year 1’), but ‘one to ten’ rule in body copy

 

If you can’t find an answer to your style guide query here, please email brand@mmu.ac.uk. We’ll do our best to advise, and will update this document, if necessary.

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