The GlobalScot tone of voice is crisp and friendly. It’s not overly humorous or colloquial, but it’s not stuffy or overly professional either. We’re warm, encouraging and inspiring, while always being appropriate to the context or situation. Sometimes we’re even passionate, but never dramatic. We never obscure what we’re saying behind grandiose statements or flowery but meaningless language.

This tone of voice fits in well with other business services like FindBusinessSupport, Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Development International.

Some dos and don’ts

Here’s a few things we wouldn’t say to users, and a more suitable alternative.

Instead of	Say this
New connection request received	Someone wants to connect
Average response time: 2 days	Usually responds within 2 days
Authentication required to proceed	Sign in to continue

Contractions

We use contractions to help our writing feel natural and human. Use we’ll, we’ve, you’re, that’s. However, research suggests that using negative contractions (like don’t and can’t) can make instructions less clear. If you think a negative contraction could be mistaken, just write it out in full.

You and we

We always refer to our customers as ‘you’. We always refer to ourselves (as an organisation) as ‘we’. It keeps things clear and friendly.

Puns and wordplay

We mention this in our section about plain English, but it’s an important part of tone as well. We don’t use puns and wordplay. Not only can these be tricky for users who aren’t native English speakers to understand, but they’re also too colloquial for our tone of voice.