'Write' this Way

Whether an Outlook or SacSend email, memo, report, slide deck, web page, or other instances, all written communications should consistently model the Sacramento State experience, as well as the IRT division "voice."

This style guide hub provides helpful resources to ensure your correspondence supports university standards.

Style Guide Resources

General Style Guidelines

We use the following guides (with some exceptions) for creating communications materials:

AP Style

University Communications Writing Style Guide

IRT-Specific Style Guidelines

Because we serve a diverse community of faculty, staff, and students - of often varying technical aptitude - it's sometimes necessary to depart from general guidelines to account for the highly technical nature of our division's work and complex terminology. Each category below provides guidance on IRT-specific style uses.

IRT Communications Channels

Channel	Managed/Submitted By	Used For/Audiences
411	IRT Service Desk; anyone can submit	Internal outage alerts and crisis management
SacSend 2.0 Emma	IRT Marketing & Communications Manager; provisioned users	Proactive/reactive messages to Faculty, Staff, Students, Auxiliary, and custom (imported) internal lists
System Alerts My Sac State Banner	Provisioned users including: Web & Mobile Services team IRT Service Desk IRT Marketing & Communications Manager	Alerts appear on My Sac State - used for more urgent messages such as outages
Monday Briefing	IRT Marketing & Communications Manager	Managed by UComm; submit proactive items for faculty and staff audiences only the Thursday prior to a desired Monday run date
Social Media	IRT Marketing & Communications Manager	Facebook  Instagram X

IRT'isms

Division Name

Even if a logo is present in the communication, always spell out the full division name on the first reference followed by the acronym in parenthesis:

Information Resources & Technology (IRT)

Other things to note:

• After the first reference, all subsequent references can now simply be the "IRT" acronym without parenthesis
• Because the ampersand is in our branded logo, we depart from University Communications' ampersand guideline and never swap out the "&" for "and"

Full Reference	Acronym	Incorrect
Information Resources & Technology	IRT	Information Resources and Technology IR&T IT
Departments/Teams ex: IRT Campus Applications team	(CAT) CAT team	Do not capitalize the word "team" in a department reference

IRT Departments

• Always add the "IRT" prefix when referring to internal IRT departments.
• Formal/executive communications: IRT Infrastructure & Operations
• Informal/casual communications: Add lowercase "team" after a department mention - such as the "IRT Service Desk team" to sound more informal

Department Name	Acronym/Shortened Name
IRT Administration	IRT Admin team
IRT Campus Applications team	(CAT)

IRT "Voice"

Write for all readers. Some people will read every written word. Others just skim. Help everyone read better by grouping related ideas together, using descriptive headers and subheaders, and bullets to break up lists.

Focus your message. Create a hierarchy of information. Lead with the main point or the most important content, in sentences, paragraphs, sections, and pages.

Be concise. Use short words and sentences. Avoid unnecessary modifiers.

Be brief and specific. Avoid vague language and any fluff.

Because we often deal in complicated processes, acronyms, and software jargon, it's not difficult to confuse our audiences with too many details.

The goals of the IRT division "voice" when writing for various audiences is to:

• Be inclusive and approachable - not be overly technical or "sound like IT"
• Make 'IT' easy - break down complicated steps/instructions to make it easy for varying technical abilities to follow
• Engage - talk to them, not at them
• Be proactive - address known (and emerging) issues or frustrations
• Demonstrate value - why our work/software/new process will improve their experiences

Instead of...	Better
Customer, user, individual	Personalize it with "you" and "your" ex: "each user's computer" to "your computer"
Salutations such as "Dear [Faculty, Staff, Student]"	Consider no salutation if message is targeted, or: Hello, [Name] (if able to customize) Hello! (if unable to customize) Hi! (if able to be informal)
Negative Language	Avoid "can't," "shouldn't," or "don't" with positive action words such as "can," "recommended," and "best"
End of Life, Retired	Try "transitioning to [new tool]"

IRT Branding (Graphics)

IRT collateral follows the specific visual guidelines in the Brand Center.

Font

When producing Word documents, slide decks, or spreadsheets, the university's primary font type is Myriad. As this font suite isn't always included on most campus devices, opt for Garamond or Calibri.

Creating Graphics

For larger designed items, connect with the Communications & Marketing Program Manager for guidance. This includes collateral such as:

• IRT letterhead for official memos/correspondence
• Flyers
• Slide decks
• Signage (printed, digital)
• Swag/branded items

Email Signature

University Communications offers the following format best practices for building your email signature in Outlook.

Include a logo? Including either the Sacramento State logo or Information Resources & Technology sub identity logo in your signature is optional, and can be downloaded here:

Download Logos

Social media icons? Again, optional, but given the small following for IRT channels, it's better to not include.

Writing Knowledge Base (KB) Articles

The IRT Service Desk Team has developed a primer for those tasked with writing Knowledge Base articles, known as KB's.

KB Article Writing Guide