Tone of Voice style guide
(and how to use them)
What’s covered Introduction
House style
How to Use This Guide Intralinks Audience Intralinks Tone of Voice
Grammar & Punctuation • Spacing • Serial Comma • Capitalization • Bulleted Lists • Hyphenation • Dates • Time • Numbers • Currency • Telephone Numbers
Glossaries Branding Conventions Copyright Trademarks Acronyms & Abbreviations Interlinks.com (web copy) CorporateCommunications/PR Intralinks Blog Social Media Internal Communications
Corporate Glossary Platform Glossary Line-of-Business Glossaries Acronyms and Abbreviations
How to use this guide
This guide is a manual of style for writers to use when creating copy for all platforms through which Intralinks communicates with its customer base and the public: • Marketing Collateral • Website • Public Relations • Social Media • Blogs • Speechwriting • Sales Scripts • Training • Internal Communications This guide is also available in the following languages: German Spanish French Brazilian Portuguese
Everyone who reads or listens to our content – regardless of language, culture, or location – should have the same brand experience through our common voice. We’ve had a native speaker of each language develop these language-specific guides. Versions contain guidelines for properly translating English copy into local languages with a focus on capturing Intralinks brand values and preserving our Tone of Voice. They also feature specific notes for correct regional copy creation – such as grammar and style conventions.
Our Audience Our audience is professional, discerning, and knowledgeable. Accuracy, fact-checking, and proper grammar and punctuation are all absolute musts when writing for them.
Our Tone of Voice We speak in the same Tone of Voice, regardless of medium or audience. In a phrase, “Intralinks = the curator, uncomplicated but enthusiastic. Controlled and measured, assumes intelligence.” We always put our customers needs above our own need to speak; so, while we speak confidently, we also listen carefully.
The inform
Here are the top ten considerations to keep in mind when speaking (or writing) for Intralinks:
Top
10 inspire
Inform Inform yourself so you can inform your reader. Just say what you need to say, don’t try to be clever. Straightforward, concise information is all that is required.
Less Less is definitely more. Don’t be tempted to ramble, keep it short if you don’t you’ll lose your reader.
No
Inspire
NO jargon or Buzz words. NO corporate passive language. NO cheesey puns. NO flowers.
Get as much energy as you can into your writing. If you inject pace and keep sentences short you’ll keep your reader’s attention and inspire them.
Talk Talk to your reader, remember, it’s just you and them. Speak to them like an intelligent friend. Be conversational.
Review Look at what you have to talk about and prioritize. Remember to run everything through the ‘so what’ filter.
Natural
Don’t use words and phrases that you wouldn’t ordinarily. Plain language is the best way to tell your story (it also has a better chance of successful translation).
Keep
Keep reading what you’ve written. Keep reducing it. Keep reminding yourself of what you’re trying to achieve.
Audience
Speak
Consider whom you’re talking to, picture them, think of what they might face so that you can connect with them.
Say your final words aloud. If you can read them without running out of breath or stumbling, you’re doing a good job.
To do and not to do
In addition to these overall guidelines please consider the following rules when communicating with Intralinks’ audience:
Address the reader directly Use the personal pronoun and avoid impersonal constructions Correct: You can bring safe collaboration to your enterprise with Intralinks VIA. Incorrect: Enterprise collaboration can be safe with Intralinks VIA.
Express the imperative with the infinitive Use verbs in their infinitive form to express imperative (commands or ‘calls to action’) rather than conjugating the verbs. Correct: Start your next deal with an Intralinks Virtual Data Room. Incorrect: An Intralinks Virtual Data Room will give your next deal a better start.
Be consistent Once you have committed to a particular way of writing a word or term, be consistent every time you use it. Correct: Consumer-grade file-sync-andshare applications pose risk to data. Be sure your file-sync-andshare tool is approved by your IT department. Incorrect: Consumer-grade file-sync-andshare applications pose risk to data. Be sure your file-sync-&share tool is approved by your IT department.
House style
Our house style is grounded in Associated Press (AP) style, with a few departures from that manual, such as serial comma (see below). When in doubt, refer to the AP Stylebook or contact the Marketing Communication department for advice: ayoung@ intralinks.com.
conducted over 24 months. “Fourth quarter earnings ... exceeded expectations.” said Ron Hovsepian.
Grammar and Punctuation
Correct: Intralinks services customer bases in North America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
Spacing Always use a single space after periods and colons. No double spacing. No exceptions. Use a space on either side of dashes and ellipses. Examples: The study – which involved Site Monitors in 30 countries – was
Serial Comma When writing a series of items, include a comma after the conjunction, before the last item.
Incorrect: Intralinks services customer bases in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America.
Capitalization As a general rule, in English, capitalize proper nouns only. Never use all caps – it comes across in print as SHOUTING. For our marketing collateral, website, and social media, we use the following style guidelines: Headlines - Initial caps Example: Intralinks Announces Q3 DFP Results Taglines – Sentence case, no periods Example: M&A growth is up globally, led by a 16% spike in US markets
House style
Bulleted Lists Maintain a consistent grammatical structure for all bullet points within a list. For example, if one bullet point starts with a verb, then they all should. Correct: When traveling on Intralinks business: • Keep records of all expenses • Stay in Intralinks-approved hotels • Find the most economical flights Incorrect: When traveling on Intralinks business: • Keep records of all expenses • Intralinks-approved hotels are the best places to stay • Find the most economical flights
Avoid using periods at the ends of lines in bulleted lists; separate items within lines with a semicolon.
Example: Intralinks presented a first-look report at the 2015 Alternative Investment landscape.
Exception: If a line in a bulleted list is exceptionally long and contains multiple thoughts, use periods between thoughts and a period at the end of the line. However, the remainder of the document or web page must be consistent, so if you use periods in one bulleted list, use periods in all bulleted lists within the document – even if the lines in other lists are short, or are sentence fragments.
When a hyphen is used to insert a thought for clarification or emphasis, use a double dash (which resolves into a longer em dash in Microsoft Word), with a space on both sides of the em dash.
Hyphenation For compound modifiers or compound nouns, use an en dash (single hyphen).
Dates Use this construction whenever you write a date: December 11, 2015
Example: Hedge Funds – an area of strong growth – are featured in this webinar.
House style
î˜ľ
Time Use a twelve-hour, four-digit format when writing time of day. Abbreviate AM and PM (in small caps) following the time, with a space after the numerals. Also include the time zone, being mindful of Standard time vs. Daylight time. Examples: 9:35 AM EST 7:00 PM DST In English-speaking regions, the time zone options are: Eastern Standard Time (EST) Central Standard Time (CST) Mountain Standard Time (MST) Pacific Standard Time (PST)
In the summer months*, Standard time shifts to Daylight time, and so you should annotate times in the following way: Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) Central Daylight Time (CST) Mountain Daylight Time (MDT) Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) Note: You do not need to spell out the time zone; the three-digit abbreviation is universally accepted as sufficient annotation. Numbers Spell out numbers one through ten. Use numerals for 11 and on.
*The changeover dates from Standard time to Daylight time, and back again, are not fixed and usually vary from year to year. Consult your region’s dates to confirm correct usage.
House style
Currency International currency codes (EUR, USD, GBP) are often used instead of currency symbols (â‚Ź, $, ÂŁ) since only some countries have specific symbols, while all have currency codes. A list of standardized 4217 currency codes is available on the ISO website. It is acceptable to use currency symbols for a group national currencies if all referenced currencies within the asset have symbols provided; if any do not have a symbol, use currency codes for all, instead. When using the currency symbol, write it before the number amount, with no space between
the symbol and the numerals. When using the currency code, write it after the numeric amount, with a space between the number and the code. Correct: 65,000.00 USD Incorrect: $65,000.00 $65,000.00 USD Telephone Numbers Always use the international format when writing numbers. Separate number groupings with a space. Do not use hyphens. The + sign should always precede a country code. If there is a local area code, it should be indicated in parentheses.
Examples: Germany: +49 (0)1234 567 888 France +33 (2)12 34 56 78 United States: +1 (555) 123 4567
House style
Branding Conventions
Our corporate copyright is:
Precede a product title with our company name.
© Intralinks 2015 (or current year) To learn more about Intralinks® and its trademarks please visit intralinks.com/about-us
Correct: Intralinks Dealspace®, Intralinks VIA® Incorrect: Studyspace™, Dealnexus® Copyright The Intralinks corporate copyright must be included in the footer of all external-facing documents. The exception is our website; there, the copyright page legally covers all content on the website, so no individual web pages need the copyright.
Trademarks Use a trademark symbol in the “first in-text instance only” – that is, the first time a trademarked name appears in the body text of a particular document. Do not include a trademark in a headline. Example: Intralinks VIA Secure collaboration just got easier with Intralinks VIA®. Businesses in every industry, from banking to manufacturing to life sciences, are sharing documents more securely and productively than
ever with Intralinks VIA – a single collaboration solution for the entire enterprise. Current Intralinks Trademarks The following words/slogans are registered trademarks and should be used with the ® symbol in text: Intralinks® Share Anywhere. Control Everything.® Intralinks Connect® Intralinks Courier® Intralinks Dealnexus® Intralinks Dealspace® Intralinks Debtspace™ Intralinks Fundspace™ Intralinks Studyspace™ Intralinks UNshare™ IRM by design™ Intralinks VIA® UNshare ® UNshare It®
House style
Acronyms and Abbreviations When using an acronym specific to Intralinks, spell out in the first instance of any document or web page, followed by the acronym in parentheses; thereafter, the acronym can be used alone. Example: The Intralinks® Deal Flow Predictor (DFP) is a highly accurate forecasting tool for gauging future deal activity. The DFP is accurate two quarters, or six months, in advance. Commonly used acronyms (e.g., HTTP, RAM, UK) do not need to be spelled out. Abbreviations should only be used when space is limited – and only then, use AP style-approved abbreviations.
For a list of commonly used Intralinks Acronyms and Abbreviations, see Section III. of this manual.
Try to include as many keywords as seems natural in the first and second paragraphs of your Web copy.
Intralinks.com (website copy) When writing copy for Intralinks. com, follow the same conventions we use for general copy development.
If you are creating metadata for a web page, include at least one keyword in the Page Title and Page Description, and include all listed keywords in the Tags for that page.
However, with web copy, we want to make our pages easy to find by Internet search engines, so we engage in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practices. All this means is, we include in our copy certain keywords – words and phrases most commonly used in web searches for our products. We maintain an active list of keywords here.
Internal Communications When writing to Intralinks colleagues, internal clients, vendors, and other associates, adhere to all the conventions and rules that govern our external, public-facing communications. It’s good practice and, in the event an internal communication is shared beyond our corporate community, the content will be on brand, and will reflect Intralinks values and Tone of Voice.
Don’t copy and paste the list, bookmark the URL as the list will change frequently.
House style
Glossary
Intralinks Glossaries For your convenience we have included glossaries of words and phrases commonly used in Intralinks copy. The glossaries contain translations or denote which words and phrase are branded and should remain in English.
Corporate Glossary Terms we use in general copy about Intralinks. Platform Glossary Terms we use to describe features and functionality shared across all Intralinks products and services.
Line-of-Business Glossaries Terms we use in connection with our specific products or business units. Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks
Dealspace and Dealnexus VIA Debtspace Fundspace Studyspace
House style
Glossary
Admin AI API AUM BYOD CFR CIO CISO CMBS CMK Corp Dev CRA CRF CRO CSR CTA CTMS DFP DCM EDC EDMS EHR eISF EMA eSig eTMF
Administrator Alternative Investments Application Programming Interface Assets Under Management Bring-Your-Own-Device Code of Federal Regulations Chief Information Officer Chief Information Security Officer Commercial Mortgage-Backed Security Customer-Managed Encryption Keys Corporate Development Clinical Research Associate Case Report Form Clinical Research Organization Clinical Study Report Clinical Trial Associate Clinical Trial Management System Deal Flow Predictor Debt Capital Markets Electronic Data Capture Electronic Document Management System Electronic Health Record Electronic Investigator Site File European Medicines Agency Electronic Signature Electronic Trial Master File
Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks
VIA Fundspace Platform Fundspace VIA Studyspace VIA VIA Dealspace/Dealnexus Platform Platform Studyspace Studyspace Studyspace Studyspace Studyspace Studyspace Dealspace/Dealnexus Debtspace Studyspace Studyspace Studyspace Studyspace Studyspace Studyspace Studyspace
House style
Glossary
FDA GCP IP IRB IRM ISF IT M&A MFA MHRA PE Pharma PMI R&D RBM REST SaaS SAE SSO SSU SUSAR TMF UI VDR WIFI
Food and Drug Administration Good Clinical Practice Intellectual Property Institutional Review Board Information Rights Management Invetigator Site File Information Technology Mergers and Acquistions Multi-Factor Authentication Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency Private Equity Pharmaceuticals Industry Post Merger Integration Research and Development Risk-Based Monitoring Representational State Transfer Archiecture Software-as-a-Service Serious Adverse Event Single Sign-On Study Start-Up Serious Unexpected Serious Adverse Report Trial Master File User Interface Virtual Data Room Wireless Internet Connectivity
Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks Intralinks
Studyspace Studyspace Corporate Studyspace Platform Studyspace Platform Dealspace/Dealnexus Platform Studyspace Fundspace Studyspace Dealspace/Dealnexus Dealspace/Dealnexus Studyspace Platform Corporate Studyspace VIA Studyspace Studyspace Studyspace Corporate Dealspace/Dealnexus Corporate