You’re not only writing for the web, you’re writing for the WWF.

There is a high level of credibility that comes with our name.

So it’s important to be consistent to keep up our brand, both internally and externally.

Here are some important things you should keep in mind:

Quick Rules about Style

Spelling

• British English is the spelling standard with The Oxford Dictionary having the final say
• All Latin species names must be italicised e.g. Sus scroffa – wild boar
• Italics can also be used for proper names, or terms that would normally be put between ‘single quote marks’

Percent and Numbers

• Use % instead of percent; ¼ instead of degrees, and km² instead of square kilometers etc. Why? Because we are trying to lessen the amount of text people have to read online
• Similarly use 3 instead of three unless it’s the beginning or the end of a sentence

Sources and Footnotes

• We can list sources at the bottom of your content. This page about forests on panda.org is a good example.

Links

• You can link both within text and in a list of links that can be put on the right hand side of your page – research shows that a mixture of the 2 has proved to be most effective.
• Try to look on panda.org for further sources of relevant info before linking off-site
• People use links to scan read a page, so always link using words that describe why you are linking to. Never link a “click here” or a “read more” or words that mean nothing if taken on their own.

Key Words

• Break every 2 to 3 paragraphs up with subheads that captures in plain English the key point or argument made in the paragraphs that it heads (this helps people to scan read as mentioned earlier)
• We are creating a new page to describe endangered species in Africa. Our key words for this page are

1. Threatened
2. Endangered
3. Africa
4. Species
5. Wildlife
6. Trade

For example: your page title may be: “Endangered species in Africa”

Your first paragraph may say “WWF is working to conserve threatened and endangered species in Africa from the threats caused by the trade in wildlife, habitat loss, bushmeat hunting and human-animal conflict situations.”

In doing this your content (your hard work) is more likely to get a higher ranking in the search engine listings.

DOs and DONT’S

DO

• Do keep time out of it as much as you can. Avoid statements like ‘next week’ or ‘next month’ or ‘soon’ – time moves on. Always use proper dates and use the month as a name so that we avoid the confusion caused by North American dating (month day) as opposed to international dating (day month) e.g. 17th Dec 2005″
• Do be respectful of WWF’s partners. Always put their logos on the relevant pages if they are OK with that, and link to the their web site if they have one.
• Do make sure you have copyright permission for any 3rd Party material you are using
• Always add what an acronym or abbreviation stands for the first time you use it.
• Do remember If you’re using long words, or conservation jargon, link to the definition in — www.wikipedia.org or create a footer at the bottom with the relevant explanations.
• Do get someone else to proof read your work. Even the best writers in the world are usually the worst proofreaders of their own work.
• Do review your work. If after 12 months the content for your pages has not been updated or reviewed, your contract with and therefore ownership of that page expires and it becomes the sole property of the panda.org Content Managers who may edit or delete it.

DON’T

• Don’t use dummy text or “text to follow,” “under construction,” or “coming soon” – if there’s no proper content, there should be no page at all.
• Don’t directly criticise a person or company unless you are absolutely sure of your position.
• Don’t use images without their credits. Do only upload them when you are allowed to and you have the copyright information.
• Don’t plagiarise – if you have found a good source then credit them fully, with a link if possible. You should also ensure that you are not infringing any copyrights in doing so.