[Area/Activity/Theme]
[Main Title]

Prepared by
[Name, Role]
[Name, Role]

Published[/Shared/Submitted]
[DDord Month YYYY]

Contents

Introduction	3

Approach	3

General principles	3

Our name	3

Tone and style	3

Structure	3

Contents page	4

Formatting	4

Using the template styles	4

Alignment	4

Capitalisation	4

Numbers	4

Fonts	4

Bullets	4

Tables	4

Page numbers	4

Publishing	4

Introduction

Different reports will likely need different approaches to their language and structure, depending on their content, audience, size and purpose. Though we also strive to create a feeling on consistency that reflects our brand. The following sections help you think about your approach.

Approach

General principles

When writing and designing your document, please consider these general principles:

Use clear language to help make your document accessible

When you first use an acronym write it out in full with the abbreviation in brackets after, you can then use just the acronym from then onwards. Though if your document is longer and perhaps has many sections that might also be read independently, you might want to repeat the full version once at the beginning of key sections.

Avoid overly long sentences.

Make use of Grammarly if you have it on your profile.

Try to be concise.

Remember you are writing as the voice of the charity, sometimes this might mean your personal opinions are different.

Our name

The first time you refer to the organisation you should write ‘METRO Charity’, after that first time, you should just write ‘METRO’. Ideally, we would like to sound personable, so after the first couple of times, it would likely be better to use ‘we’ and ‘our’.

Tone and style

Friendly and informed, highlighting our domain-based expertise, and always professional and authentic.

Where possible we use sentence case. This means that headings, for example, would be written like this ‘Heading for my next section’ rather than like this ‘Heading for my Next Section’.

Structure

Long sections of text are harder for your audience to digest. Using structure, like sections, headings, bulleted lists, tables and diagrams help the reader to navigate the information you are providing. Below is some guidance on the top-level structure you might use for your sections for a number of common document types:

Monitoring report

Introduction

Summary

Performance

Recommendations

Survey findings

Introduction

Summary

Methodology

Findings

Conclusions

Recommendations

Consultation response

Introduction

Context

Response

Sections reflecting the questions asked in the consultation document

Recommendations

Contents page

A contents table as your first page is often useful in helping readers to find things quickly and also helps them understand how you have structured your document. However, sometimes when a document is very short a contents page is unnecessary, so can be deleted.

Once you have finished or updated a document you should always update the contents table by clicking on it and then clicking on the Update Table button that then appears. This will sometimes give you the option to update just the page numbers or the entire table, it is usually best to update the entire table.

Formatting

Using the template styles

This template has a number of predefined styles that you should be using. You can find these styles on the Home ribbon.

You should apply the correct styles to all of your text, this is especially important for your headings, as using the heading styles also allows for the automatic creation of the contents table.

Body text (your paragraphs) should immediately follow your headings, without any blank lines.

Alignment

We always left align, text should never be justified.

Capitalisation

It can be easy to start capitalising words that you want to place emphasis on, but this can start to get confusing for the reader. Refer to our Capitalisation Guide to help you decide which words should be capitalised.

Numbers

When including numbers in your text anything up to and including ten should be written as a word, above ten the digits should be used and group in thousands using commas, for example 1,000. Avoid starting sentences with a number in digit form – if the number is greater than ten, simply reword the sentence so that the number is not first.

Fonts

For all documents produced in Office you must use our corporate font, which is Vag Rounded (often labelled Vag Rounded Std Light in the font menu). If you don’t have this font installed, please call DHTS.

Bullets

Bulleted lists can be very helpful to your reader, but please try to use them consistently:

Where possible, please use the default round solid fill bullet style. Sometimes you might need to use numbered bullets. For example, when you have a long list of potentially quite long items, such as in a Job Description or a contract

Decide if you will be finishing each bullet with a full stop or not. Usually authors don’t use full stops on lists with short items, but do use them for list with longer items, ie sentences. Once you decide, stick to your choice, for that list at least

Tables

Tables should use the formatting in the sample below. Which can be selected from the Table Tools > Design ribbon.

Do not expand a table beyond the width margins of the page. Inside your table, text should be left aligned, and numbers should be centred, apart from final column number totals, which should be right aligned. You can resize column widths within the table to best fit the data, but you should then follow these widths in subsequent tables where possible.

Sample table

Domain	Data	Data	Data	Data	TOTAL
Sexual & Reproductive Health	12	17	0	38	67
Community	7	8	2	10	27
Mental Health & Wellbeing	6	10	10	5	31
Youth	6	6	1	10	23
HIV	20	9	1	19	49
Core	5	2	1	1	9

Page numbers

This template includes page numbers, please do not remove them.

Publishing

Once your document is ready to be shared, you should complete the following steps:

Check you have had your document reviewed and approved as appropriate – usually by your line manager, but for external publications sometime Comms too

Ensure all track changes and comments have been addressed and no longer show in the document

Check the flow of your document. Ensuring that sections, paragraphs, and tables are not uncomfortably split over pages – you might need to insert page breaks to help with this. A page break can often be useful to demark the transition between the top-level sections (Heading 1s) in your document

Save a copy in an appropriate location, using the file name format: METRO Charity – [Main Title] v[X], where X is the version number

Save another copy as a pdf. This locks in the formatting and stops people changing the document without you knowing

Share the pdf version as required

Let Comms know if the document should be published to our website, shared in NEWSROUND, or on our social channels