Use our house style checklist to ensure you are following our style guide.
Areas to check and questions to ask yourself
Before or during writing
Audience
- Do you know who you are writing for?
Message
- Is your main message clear?
- Have you stuck to the point?
As a reminder see be concise.
Language
- Is the language pitched at the right knowledge level for your target audience?
- If you’ve used any technical terms, have you explained them?
- Are you consistent and correct with use of first person, third person etc?
- Are you writing in the active voice?
- Where possible, are you sticking to plain English guidelines?
- Does it sound like it’s coming from a real person?
As a reminder see top 10 plain English tips.
Tone of voice
- Have you written with the voice of TPR?
- Is it straightforward?
- Is it authoritative?
- Does it reflect our house style?
As a reminder see tone of voice.
Once you are finished
Proof read
- Have you read it thoroughly?
- Does it make sense?
- Will your audience understand it? Ask a colleague to review it and check it makes sense.
- Is there any waffle?
- Is it consistent in tone and language?
Check spelling and grammar
- Is your spell checker set to English UK?
- Have you used capital letters correctly?
- Are all your apostrophes in the right place?
- Are there any typos that spell check would not pick up?
- If you are not sure if you have used the right word, have you checked our A to Z of common house style points?