All articles in the ITS Knowledge Base must follow a consistent style and tone. This style guide is intended to provide a set of standards for content and formatting that should be applied to all articles. See Creating Articles for descriptions of various types of articles present in the Knowledge Base.
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1.0 Article Content
The content of the articles should be clear and concise. Content should be geared towards a lay audience with minimal technological experience.
1.1 – Article Topics
Articles should focus on a single topic of interest to the intended audience of the Knowledge Base.
How-to Articles
For how-to articles, the topic will be task-oriented. Articles that contain more than one task should be broken up into two separate articles.* For example, an article such as "Changing and Resetting your Google Password" should be broken up into two articles titled "Changing your Google Password" and "Resetting your Google Password." This is done because changing a password and resetting a password are two separate tasks with two separate sets of instructions.
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We would rather have more short and descriptive articles than have longer articles that cover multiple topics. |
Troubleshooting Articles
Troubleshooting articles should focus on helping the user solve a problem that they are having. Similar to how-to articles, troubleshooting articles should focus on a single user issue (e.g., "Cannot Connect to UConn Secure" or "Wifi Adapter Shows There is No Internet"). If your article helps the user solve a single issue, but you need to ask multiple questions to either identify the problem or provide the user with a range of possible solutions, then you can include all of that content in a single article. Typically, these types of articles have "troubleshooting" at the end of the title (e.g., "HuskyVision Troubleshooting").
Informational Articles
Informational articles should provide a brief overview of a topic and help orient readers so that they can understand a concept and seek more informed assistance on an issue.
1.2 – Article Titles
How-to Article Titles
For how-to articles, we start with a gerund – a verb with the suffix "-ing" that is used as a noun (e.g., "Adding a Mass Mail Account in Outlook"). Below are some guidelines for titling how-to articles.
Pick one word for actionable things. Instead of titling an article "Archiving or Saving Emails..." title it "Archiving Emails..." or "Saving Emails..."
Troubleshooting Articles
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Informational Articles
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Titles should never be presented in the form of a question.
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1.3 – Labels
All articles must include labels (or metadata) – keywords that are related to the topic of the article. Labels support an effective search and group related articles together.
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