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Guidelines and Overview

To improve the customer's understanding, choose words wisely and use them consistently. This section provides best practices for choosing the right words for our products.

  • Use simple words and concise sentences. We recommend using the online Hemingway app to help you avoid complex writing. This app will recommend simpler word choices and make other helpful suggestions.
    Tip:
    • Most AI tools understand how to comply with the Plain Language Initiative, a standard adopted by the Federal government for equitable communication standards. Ask AI to evaluate your copy based on this standard.
  • Avoid technical, marketing, or business jargon. For example, don't use the word "bandwidth" in place of simpler ways of indicating personal capacity to complete a project.
  • Avoid technical jargon whenever possible. Use technical terms only when the intended audience is certain to understand them, and they are the best means of communicating the information effectively.
  • Use US spellings and avoid non-English words, such as vis-a-vis.
  • Avoid Latin abbreviations for common English spellings. (that is for i.e.)
  • Use contractions.
  • Don't use verbs as nouns or nouns as verbs.
  • Only use acronyms that your audience is familiar with, and spell out the term for clarity.
To improve clarity, avoid miscommunication and negative connotations, simplify training and onboarding, it is necessary for content groups to adhere to the usage of certain terminology. Use the following groups of terms as a reference when writing.

ACST Terminology Alignment Project

The following list contains terms that should be used in content developed by ACST. These terms have been discussed and agreed upon by the Content Community of Practice.

Catholic Language Standards have been thoroughly researched by various product management, strategy, and user experience groups.

Tip: If you have a term to discuss, please add it to the Troublesome Word List and reach out to any member of the UX content team via the #ux-content Slack channel to discuss.