Writing with style - Fine Point Communications

Last month, a discussion on CASE Communities explored whether schools should use their style guides to promote diverse, equitable, and inclusive language. I found the topic to be timely and interesting (I’m weird this way: anytime the words “style guide” come up, I’m all ears).

What really grabbed me, though, was the presumption that all schools have a style guide. That should be so, but at independent schools it often lies on the list of “nice to have but not essential” to-dos.

That’s a mistake. Every business ought to have a style guide, one used often by anyone who communicates externally. When every division and every department speaks as one, identity and authority are enhanced, conveying unity of purpose and professionalism.

At the same time, it’s easy to become demoralized by the Chicago Manual of Style (1,147 pages in the latest edition) or the AP Stylebook (619 pages). “That’s what we need to produce?”

Not exactly. In this month’s newsletter, I’ll walk you through the basics of creating a “house guide,” an abbreviated style guide, plus I’ll return to the question that started all this: Is the style guide the right place for your school’s choices on inclusive language to live?

Start slow

The happy news is that a house guide of only a few pages can be perfectly helpful. Think of this task less as building a competitor to the big guides and more as a complement, one that addresses the unique needs of your school.

If a building has formal and informal names, a house guide provides your chance to establish which is appropriate for school publications. How does your school list times: Is it 11:00 a.m., 11 AM or something else? And where do you stand on that old bugaboo, the serial comma (also known as the Oxford comma)?

A quick brainstorm meeting of your communications team or leadership colleagues will give you a punch list of loose threads to get started: inconsistencies, say, in the weekly newsletter or unsettled questions among your faculty and staff.

Don’t reinvent the wheel

Has your school already chosen a preferred dictionary and style manual? If so, you are well ahead of the game.

My AP stylebook and Webster's New World College Dictionary

If you have not, I would recommend the Associated Press Stylebook, 55th Edition, and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition. (Full disclosure: As you can see in the picture, I rely on a competing dictionary, a 2001-era copy of Webster’s New World College Dictionary.) The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition, is a fine alternative to AP, and if your school insists on that, fine. Personally, I find CMOS to be more for academic readers than toward general readers, so I lean toward AP.

As you tackle the punch list from your brainstorm session, these books will help you. Treat them as your primary arbiters of style. If they are silent on a question, the answer falls to you. But not entirely to you.

Enlist partners

I’ve read a lot of style guides, and they all have a way of sounding rigid and eternal. Yet the fact is, language evolves. The style guide that fails to keep up with such changes will soon become irrelevant.

To form and sustain this living document, a stylebook committee can be very handy — gathering, say, an English teacher, an admissions counselor, and a staff assistant to join you in discussing the punch list. You’ll get broader perspectives, which is really valuable, and you’ll avoid giving the impression that all these decisions come from only you.

Partially done beats completely undone

Some topics may need a lot of input, especially from administrators, and the answers can feel elusive.

For example, take using “they” as a singular pronoun: This usage works quite easily in spoken English, especially once established as a norm. Yet it’s tricky in written English, where a reader may be unclear from context whether the antecedent is singular or plural and where an explanation of the usage rarely comes off as graceful. There are inclusion aspects to consider, too; the issue is not simply grammatical.

The conversation can take a while. That’s okay: The important thing is to keep moving toward a solution, rather than have the conversation stall.

In the meantime, keep updating and circulating the style guide with the entries your committee has resolved.

Is this just friendly guidance?

The answer depends on your school and your head. At one school, communications can have the responsibility of “enforcing” the style guide, editing submissions to fit the decisions of the group. At another, the style guide may amount to suggestions, rather than rules of the road.

My advice: Raise this question directly with your supervisor, as early as possible. Once the guide is complete and published, you’ll need to understand very clearly what it means and implies.

Include identity elements?

Some schools go beyond a style guide to create a brand book. This includes information about their logo, colors, and signage — the most important elements of a visual identity — as well as branding language and instructions.

It can be useful to have all these contained in one document, but it becomes a more complicated document to complete, one that may be beyond the ability of a communications department to finish in-house.

Role models

Ready to start building your own style guide? Here are a few samples to inspire you:

Incorporate DEI into your style guide

Returning to our original question, I wholeheartedly recommend using the style guide to collect and communicate school decisions about DEI language.

Doing so makes your style guide more comprehensive and, therefore, valuable to your colleagues. That, in turn, may get people in the habit of referring to the guide to solve any question about word choice or usage.

If you’ve formed a stylebook committee, definitely add your DEI leader to the table. There are implications of choosing, for example, to use or forgo gender-based language, and you’ll be very glad for the perspective of this valuable colleague.

The only downside I can see of broadening the role of a style guide is that an entry can be misread (intentionally or not) as the school dictating a point of view to teachers, rather than recommending a way to communicate with parents and others. The best defense against this is candor: The more you can explain style decisions, the less risk you’ll face of being misunderstood.

Don’t-miss clicks

A thoughtful piece in the New York Times examined sex education in schools, pegged to a presentation on “Pornography Literacy” given by the Dalton School’s director of health and wellness to students at another Manhattan school. Given the prurience and squeamishness that surround teaching children about sex, it’s worth thinking about how you’d frame your school’s approach, should a reporter start asking questions.
The bogus “debate” over the teaching of racism moved this month to Ohio. Columbus Academy hit the nuclear button and withdrew re-enrollment contracts from two families after their parents, in the school’s words, “waged a public campaign of false and misleading statements and inflammatory attacks.” The parents then went on Fox News to give their side, and you can imagine where things went from there.
I really like this promotional partnership between a small-town newspaper and coffee roaster in North Carolina, and there’s no reason an independent school couldn’t repeat this idea to build awareness and improve its own neighbor relations. As David Grant wrote on Twitter, “This is about making your … org a key contributor to the sense of place about your community.”

What’s new at Fine Point Communications

This summer, I am assisting DePaul University with production of its daily newsletter Newsline. This has been a wonderful opportunity to get to know DePaul, a faith-based school in Chicago with 22,000 students, as it prepares to resume classes on campus this fall. In addition to creating the daily miracle, I’ve interviewed faculty for feature stories and worked with student writers on refining their personality profiles. It’s been great.

I have also edited a book proposal, one that I’d really love to see come to print. No details while the proposal is under consideration, but stay tuned for more on this.

I am starting to schedule writing assignments this fall, particularly magazine pieces. If you have a project on your radar, this is an excellent time to touch base so we can make the timing work.