ADvTECH Style Guide | Jan 2017

ADvTECH Group
Corporate Affairs and Communications
Style Guide
1. General information
What is a STYLE GUIDE?
A style guide is a set of standards for the writing and design of documents. Its purpose is to
ensure that documents throughout a company conform to corporate style and branding; this in turn
improves communication.
ADvTECH’s Style Guide
The ADvTECH style guide serves as a reference for all of us at ADvTECH for communicating both
internally and externally. The guide is not limited to individuals who are specifically in writing
positions, but extends to all employees and external consultants to ensure consistency in all
communication within the Group. (See Types of Communication below).
As an ADvTECH employee one must remember this positioning when writing:
ADvTECH’s core business is Education and Recruitment. Our goal is to enrich human capital and
to make a real and material difference in the sectors we serve.
Our customers are our focus and our promise to them is to strive for excellence and sustainability
in all we do. Underpinning this is our own ethical conduct and respect for each other. [See
http://www.advtech.co.za/Pages/About/Ourpurposevalues.aspx]
2. Communication hints
Types of communication
Internal - employers and employees at all levels of the company.
External - clients, independent contractors, industry colleagues, learners and parents and other
individuals not working directly for the company.
Different types of communication
Memoranda
Minutes
Reports
Social networking posts
Multimedia presentations
E-mail
Internet and intranet websites
Letters
Proposals
Contracts
Advertisements
Brochures
Press releases

3. Your audience
To communicate effectively, you need to ask yourself:
Who is your audience?
What are you trying to achieve?
What do you want the audience to do?
What will the audience think of ADvTECH?
Your writing style depends on your audience and purpose. Some examples follow.
Academic – you’re giving potential students and parent’s information about a degree [Extract from
The Independent Institute of Education Bachelor of Business Administration]
“The Bachelor of Business Administration is aimed at students who are business minded and are
interested in a career in management administration. Business administrators and managers with
the skills to plan, organise, direct, control and review daily operations and major functions of a
business are rare in South Africa and this programme is designed to prepare graduates with the
necessary skills to fill this gap.”
Descriptive – you’re describing an event, a state of mind etc. [Extract from ADvNET, ‘Eight tips for
becoming a more confident public speaker’
“I had stage fright before and whenever I started speaking, my face would turn red and I'd look like
I was about to start crying at any moment. Using these eight steps I overcame my fear, and even
became a public speaking addict in the end.”
Persuasive [Extract from ADvNET Investment insights for 2016]
“This business fits succinctly into the space between the lower-end government schools and the
high-end private schools and speaks to the growing emerging middle class in South Africa.
ADvTECH is planning to increase prices by 6-10% in 2016. With current cost of capital between
10-12% and targeted return of 20%, we calculate a positive impact on margins.”
Expository – giving the facts [Extract from ADvNET Group IT reduces operational costs and
increases profit]
“Group IT's recent endeavours to streamline ADvTECH's telecommunication spend serves as the
perfect example of actions that have resulted in the creation of a competitive advantage. It was
identified that moving from ADvTECH's previous telecommunication's billing system to Telkom's
'per second billing' could offer ADvTECH large savings - 1.5 % on local calls and as much as 6 %
on national calls. Over the course of a three-year contract, this is a saving of over R5 million.”
Compare and contrast [Extract from ADvNET Online Professional Development for Educators]
“It was noted at the outset that with more than 400 000 educators in the South African system,
print- and contact-based approaches to supporting professional development were neither efficient
nor cost-effective. On the other hand, SACE had few registered providers of online professional
development services. The seminar therefore sought to understand the issues and debates
regarding online professional development.”
Narrative – telling the story [Extract from ADvNET CEO Roy Douglas ‘Welcome back message
2016’]
“2016 promises to be just as exciting, with many more challenges but hopefully we will enjoy more
success. I am excited by the opportunities that lie ahead, and I look forward to working with you all
and bringing these to fruition.”
The golden rule is to write clearly and precisely.
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4. Content Style Guide
Abbreviations and Acronyms
Always spell out acronyms when you first refer to them – remember, others may not know what
they stand for! The next time you refer to them you can then use the abbreviation.
APS = ADvTECH People Solutions
BEE = Black Economic Empowerment
CEO = Chief executive officer
CSI = Corporate Social Investment
HESIO =
H = Human Resources
E = Employment Equity
S = Skills and Development
I = Investing in Employees
O = Occupational Health and Safety
H/ O = Head Office
HR = Human Resources
LDP = Leadership Development Programme
MDP = Management Development Programme
The IIE – The Independent Institute of Education
American Spelling
No American spelling – behaviour, not behavior – programme, not program.
Generally program is used for a software or computer program. Programme is used for a school
programme, concert programme etc. Standardise on ‘s’ instead of ‘z” for words like realise, not
realize; amortise, not amortize
Your Word programme and spell checker should be set for SA English or UK English.
Ampersand
Ampersand (&) - change to ‘and’.
Apostrophes
• MDs not MD’s (plural, not possessive)
• Six months’ time, R10 millions’ worth, no month’s or million’s.
• It’s for it is and its for the possessive. For example: It’s going to be a profitable year. The
Board plans its meeting annually.
Brand names:
ADvTECH
ADvNET
ADvTALK
ADvTALENT
Head Office
ADvTECH Group
AND – know the names of all our brands – see Annexure 1.
Campus
Refrain from using “campus” for all locations within the Group:
• Campus is used for Tertiary
• Schools is used for Schools
• Site is used for Resourcing
Capitals
Capitals, as per decision made by Didier for the interims 2016 – Everything should be lowercase.
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Unless used as a title of a section, sub-section, signature or official name e.g. company, an act or
department.
• If writing ‘The tertiary division’ and ‘The schools division’
• If writing ‘division’ only, the d is lower case
• The board
• The directors
• The group
• The board of directors
• The HESIO committee
• The transformation, social and ethics committee
• Title in signature - Independent non-executive director, (First word capital only)
• If in general: group financial director
• Lower case: director
• Exco
• chief executive officer (CEO)
• chairman or chairperson)
Colon
Colons are used to make lists or to separate one idea from the one which follows. E.g.:
On the agenda: finalise induction programme, check brochure costs and write up reports.
I’m soaking wet: I forgot my umbrella.
Use a single space following the colon. Place colons outside quotation marks when used together.
Commas
• Use when setting off the year in a date that includes a month and a day, e.g. January 1, 2016
• Do not use a comma when no day is given, e.g. January 2001.
• In a series consisting of three or more elements, place the elements with commas.
• When a conjunction (like, and, or) joins the last two elements in a series, there is no comma
before the conjunction.
E.g.: He has a choice between Vega, Wits and UNISA to do his honours degree.
Composition
The rule of thumb is one paragraph to each topic.
Contractions
For more formal communication avoid shortened forms such as ‘isn’t’, ‘wasn’t’ etc. unless you are
quoting someone.
Dash
Use an em dash (—) to set apart entire phrases from the main body of a sentence and separate
the dashes from the words that precede and follow it with a space.
E.g. He waited for the bus — in the rain — for over an hour.
Degrees
• Use bachelor’s degree or master’s degree when not referring to an actual degree. E.g.:
After completing a master’s degree, she went on to lecture.
• Use capitals when referring to a degree: e.g. Bachelor of Science degree or Master of Arts
degree. (Not bachelor’s of science degree or master’s of arts degree.) Use doctoral degree
or doctorate, but not doctorate degree.
• Abbreviated degrees generally don’t take a full stop BA, BEd, MBA, PhD.
e.g., i.e.
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The abbreviation “e.g.” means “for example.” The abbreviation “i.e.” means “that
is” and should be used when expanding on a topic.
E-mail
Lowercase, with hyphen. Short form of electronic mail. In text, italicise the e-mail address - do not
underline it.
Emphasis
To emphasise text, use bold or italics, not underlining.
English
Always capitalise.
Exclamation point
Use with discretion!
Forum, forums and other tricky plurals
Avoid the use of ‘fora’. You can say ‘symposia’ but ‘symposiums’ is also acceptable. However,
there are words that should be pluralised in this way, e.g. criterion / criteria; phenomenon /
phenomena.
Headings
Leave a blank line, or its equivalent in space, after the title or heading of a document. Begin on first
line if continued to next page.
Honours
Use a capital ‘H’ when referring to a specific Honours Programme, requirements and the degree. If
used generically (e.g., journalism honours courses), then lowercase. The correct abbreviation is
e.g. BAHons, BComHons.
Hyphens
• Use hyphens after prefixes such as non-, pre-, and re- (e.g. non-aligned, pre-ordained) and
when the last letter of the prefix and the first letter of the following word are the same: preengineering,
co-ordinator.
• There are some compound words that are hyphenated, e.g. mother-in-law, out-of-date.
• When two words describe something, they are hyphenated to enhance clarity. Examples
are: well-known author, bluish-green colour.
Note also:
o Year-end; e-Recruitment; full-time / part-time.
• A hyphen may also be used to mean: to, up to and including, or through a range of
numbers, dates, pages and so on.
o Frank Thompson ADvTECH CEO (2002-2016)
Initials
No space between two initials preceding the last name: CJ Mkize, not C J Mkize.
Language
Set language to UK English (Spelling, Grammar, Punctuation and Vocabulary).
Common American spelling errors:
No “z” to be used if an “s” can be used, e.g. emphasise should be used, not emphasize.
All words that require a “u” should contain a “u”, e.g. favour as opposed to favor.
Avoid errors such as ‘comprises of’ - it’s just ‘comprise’. Don’t confuse terms such as ‘irritate’ and
‘aggravate’: irritate = annoying; aggravate = to make worse.
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Latin phrases
Italicise Latin phrases.
Master’s
Use an apostrophe (possessive) when referring to the degree: master’s program, master’s degree,
a master’s in communication.
Names
When communicating via email or letters use a person’s full name: first name. Or, if the person
prefers, use first initial and last name. Use the global address list as a reference. Double check
with the individual if there is any doubt.
Numbers
• 1 300, not 1300 or 1,300
• Single space between number and word, e.g. R2 million, not R2million
• One to ten written out; from 11 upwards, use numbers
• Do not spell out dates or other serial numbers, write as figures.
• At the start of a sentence, write out the number. E.g. Twelve days passed before we got an
answer.
On
Do not use “on” prior to a date or day of the week: The meeting will be held Monday. The workshop
is held 20 January.
Online
One word, no hyphen.
Parenthesis (bracket)
Parentheses are the marks which show that something is not really important but is still worth
mentioning. E.g. His laptop (but not his cell phone) is on his desk.
Parentheses can also be used when there is information which should be given, but it’s not enough
to have its own sentence. E.g. We (Jenny, Nomvula and Michael) have made our plans for
Mandela Day.
Generally used are round brackets (…).
When a whole sentence is in brackets, the full stop goes inside the bracket. E.g. I went shopping. (I
didn’t enjoy my afternoon.)
Period/ full stop
Only one space between a period and the beginning of the next sentence.
Professor
Do not abbreviate to ‘Prof’ in titles.
Quotation marks (“…”)
Use quotation marks around the titles of scholarly articles and papers, newspaper and magazine
articles, speeches, seminars, presentations, and songs. Extracts from an article or speech, for
example, must always have quote marks. E.g.: The article on report writing states: “Keep your
sentences short.”
For book titles, newspaper names and the like, it is permissible to use italics instead when the rest
of the sentence is not italicised. E.g. she reads the Financial Mail. The article entitled How to Make
Money is very interesting. (Note that book/song titles etc. use a capital letter for the main words of
a title.}
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Semicolon (;)
Used to separate a series of complex phrases (it functions like a comma with a series of simple
items). E.g.: Her travels took her to Johannesburg, South Africa; to Harare, Zimbabwe; and to
Gaborone in Botswana.
Also used to join two separate sentences that have a connecting thought. E.g. some people still
write with a pen or pencil; others prefer to write using a keyboard.
Signature
Always obtain the permission of an individual before using his/her signature in print. If you have
access to a signature that is available electronically, get permission before putting it on a new
document or one that has been changed in any way from a previously approved version.
Spellcheck
Never send out a communication before completing a spelling and grammar check – noting that
this is not infallible so do a final read through of your document.
Titles
Titles are proper nouns therefore to be written with Capitals: Chief Executive Officer, Roy Douglas.
If the person or groups name does not feature immediately before or immediately after as shown,
the title will then be lowercase.
If you do use e.g. Dr, it does not need a full stop after it (Dr EJ Jones).
Web address
Italicise in published documents, rather than underlining.
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5. Annexure 1
Our brands
Schools division:
• Schools division Head Office
• CrawfordSchools TM
• Trinityhouse
• Maravest
o Maragon
o Charterhouse
• Centurus Colleges
o Pecanwood College
o Tyger Valley College
o Southdowns College
• Abbotts Colleges
• Junior Colleges
• ADvTECH Academies
o Gaborone International School (GIS)
o Kathstan
o Founders Hill
o Summit College
o Copperleaf College
Tertiary division:
• The Independent Institute of Education (The IIE)
o World of Work (WOW)
• Varsity College (VC)
o Forbes Lever Baker (FLB)
o The Business School (TBS)
• Vega
• The Design School Southern Africa (DSSA)
• Rosebank College (RC)
• Capsicum Culinary Studio
• Oxbridge Academy
Resourcing division
• Resourcing Head Office
• Network Recruitment
• Communicate Personnel
• Brent Personnel
• Cassel&Co
• Tech-Pro Personnel
• Insource IT Edge
• Africa HR
• CA Global Group
• Kapele Appointments
o Inkokheli HR Appointments
o The Working Earth
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Organogram of our brands
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