Bright Ideas: The Content Coms Style Guide

Content Coms’ team of writers work according to a style guide, which is based on the widely-adopted style guides of the Guardian and the Economist.

The PR industry may have a reputation for crimes against the English language, but Content Coms is committed to good writing and good grammar. Here are our five golden rules:

Company names are collective nouns

We know that a company is a collective noun, so we refer to it using the singular.

‘Content Coms is a leading low-carbon specialist’ (NOT ‘Content Coms are leading low-carbon specialists’)

Superlatives aren’t super

We identify why a client’s products are special, rather than just calling them great, amazing, incredible – or, every editor’s nightmare: state-of-the-art.

‘An energy-saving retrofit product’ (NOT ‘a fantastic product’)

Active voice is better than passive voice

We believe that strong, active sentences give a better impression than passive ones.

‘The company installed devices in all the offices’ (NOT ‘the company was installing devices in all the offices’)

Simplicity is better than jargon

Wherever possible, we use short, lucid sentences that are easy to understand and sensitive to translation.

‘The Content Coms team writes a lot of articles’ (NOT ‘The Content Coms team generates extensive written material’)

Prroof reeding is gud

Of course we make mistakes – but we try to correct them before our clients ever see.