Research Guides Standards and Best Practices

Users skim web content in an F-shaped pattern. Make your guide content easy to read with these tips:

• Put key information first
• Divide page content with clear headers
• Write helpful, descriptive link text
• Cut non-essential words and information
• Keep paragraphs and sentences brief
• Use bullets when listing items
• Use numbered lists for processes with ordered steps
• Limit jargon, initialisms, and acronyms – and spell them out when you do use them
  • eg, Interlibrary Loan (ILL) or Geospatial Services Center (GSC)
• Use parallel construction in lists and headers

• Use a personal tone in writing.
• Focus on using an active voice rather than passive.
  • active voice: The library provides study spaces.
  • passive voice: Study Spaces are provided at the library.
• Use pronouns. The user is You. The library is We.
  • "We provide study spaces."
  • "We'll help you find the most relevant resources."

"LibGuides" refers only to the web-based software package by SpringShare. We agreed to use the term "Research Guides" to refer to the collective of guides we have produced together. The general term "guides" is a category that refers to librarian-created web pages that are aids for subject- or course-based research; in this category there are "subject guides,", "course guides," "portal pages," and "how-to guides." The rest of the site is composed simply of web pages.

It is important internally that we don't confuse LibGuides (the package) with the pages created with that package, and important in communicating with library patrons that "LibGuides" not be used at all. (Think of "LibGuides" as being akin to "Microsoft Word." You would never refer to a document created in MS Word this way: "Just read that MS Word I sent you.")

For consistency's sake, call them pages. SpringShare calls them pages and so do users.

The following sites contain resources for effective usablity and writing for the web.

We gratefully credit Jesse Martinez and the Boston College librarians for permission to use their LibGuides Standards guide as the basis for our own