Building partnerships through collaboration.
Policy Writing Style Guide
Good policies are easy to read and help readers:
- Find what they need
- Understand what they find
- Use what they find to meet their needs
Follow These Best Practices
- Create a policy the reader will understand the first time and in the way you intended
- Use clear, precise and straightforward language so that busy readers understand the message
- Simple words are easier and faster to read for all levels of readers and will aid in understanding
| Try To Avoid | Write Instead |
| The university seeks to promote and increase participation of underrepresented suppliers and contractors in the procurement process with a program that reflects the broad diversity of our local New York State communities and to become more inclusive of the variety of locally relevant businesses that encounter difficulties with market entry, customer access, and financial growth. | The university seeks to promote and increase participation of New York State businesses that encounter difficulties with market entry, customer access, and financial growth. |
| Try To Avoid | Write Instead |
| Staff may be unaware that the regulations require written consent from the participant. | The regulations require written consent from the participant. |
- In an active-voice sentence, the person or department/unit taking the action is the subject of the sentence
- Passive-voice sentences often do not identify who is performing the action
| Try To Avoid | Write Instead |
| Regulations have been proposed by the Department of Labor. | The Department of Labor proposed regulations. |
- Short sentences convey complex information in easy-to-understand units
- Separate the idea into its parts and make each the subject of its own sentence
- Longer sentences demand greater concentration from the reader and may make the meaning difficult to follow
| Try To Avoid | Write Instead |
| Built on the efforts of campus policy and procedure "owners", this site is designed to make policy and procedure information widely accessible so that members of the campus community can make decisions and streamline campus administrative processes with the knowledge that their actions conform with official campus policies and procedures. | This is the official web site for university policies. |
- Long lead-in clauses push the key message toward the end of the sentence
| Try To Avoid | Write Instead |
| Use of the UB owned fiber optic cable plant, known as the UB Regional Fiber Network, is governed by the relationship that the university has with current and prospective partner institutions in support of UB’s outreach mission to deepen UB’s impact and outreach in the regional community, strengthening programs and partnership and contribute to the social, cultural and economic vitality of Western New York. | The University at Buffalo provides access to the UB-owned fiber optic cable plant to deepen the university’s impact and outreach in the regional community and strengthen programs and partnerships that contribute to the economic vitality of Western New York. |
- Verbs express action and are often the most important part of sentences
- Be aware of words ending in “ion” as they are usually the verb in noun form (e.g., notification, application, identification)
| Try To Avoid | Write Instead |
| The project manager has the responsibility for the creation of the safety manual. | The project manager is responsible for creating the safety manual. |
| Try To Avoid | Write Instead |
freshmen
upperclassmen, lowerclassmen, underclassmen
chairman
policeman | first-year students
upper-year, upper-division, upper-level
chair, chair person
police officer |
| Try To Avoid | Write Instead |
| No single prize in any raffle may exceed $100,000. | A single prize in any raffle may not exceed $100,000. |
| Try To Avoid | Write Instead |
aforementioned during such time as for the duration of | previous while during |
| Try To Avoid | Write Instead |
mutual cooperation uniformly consistent past history | cooperation consistent history |
| Try To Avoid | Write Instead |
a percentage of due to the fact that in the event that on a monthly basis | some because if monthly |
- Highlight or emphasize a series of requirements or other complex information in a visually clear way
- Allow readers to scan for information
- Facilitate reading comprehension
Bulleted lists:
- Organize information so that it is easier to understand
- Help the reader see relationships that may be hidden in dense text
- Allow readers to scan for information
- Suggest methods for accomplishing tasks governed by the policy
- Clarify complex aspects of the policy
- Use lowercase “university” when referring to the University at Buffalo
- Review the Editorial Style Guide
- Use must for an obligation
- Use must not for a prohibition
- Spell out acronyms the first time they are used
- Use terms consistently within the policy and across related policies
- Wordy, dense documents are confusing to the reader
- Eliminate inefficient expressions and grammatical clutter
Contact an Expert
Pamela Lojacono
Policy, Compliance and Internal Controls