Introduction
Our tone is active, human and impartial – helping people feel informed and supported.
We use plain language, short sentences and simple contractions to make content accessible. We speak directly to our readers using ‘you’ and ‘your’, and refer to the Council as ‘we’.
Our writing avoids jargon, gendered language and unnecessary complexity, so people can quickly find what they need and take action with confidence.
Our writing style
Our writing is
- active
- straightforward
- human
- polite
- authoritative
- impartial
Our approach is to
- use plain, familiar language
- use short sentences
- mostly use the active voice
- say ‘we’ when we’re talking about the Council
- say ‘you’ and ‘your’ when talking to readers and customers
- use only simple contractions like ‘can’t’ and ‘aren’t’
- use respectful, gender-neutral language
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
We try not to use FAQs. If people keep asking us the same questions, we need to rewrite the content to answer them.
They are not a good way of providing a summary of useful information – that can be done by structuring page content more effectively. Very often they are used as a ‘cop out’ to get around writing content properly, or rewriting content when something important needs to be added – we should write our content in the best way we can so that people find what they need, to do what they came to our site for.
Other questions
We do not ask questions in headings and text unless we are asking the person reading the information a question.
Scannable content
We make our content easy to read and understand by
- using frequent, informative headings
- having the most important words and phrases at the top of the page so that search engines can find them
- creating lists
- writing short sentences in short paragraphs
- making links clear