Help:Healthcarepedia Style Guide

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The Healhtcarepedia style guide serves as a reference for Healthcarepedia content strategy and helps ensure that the strategy is a part of every piece of content created. This guide serves to help keep our content efficient and user-focused while also asking whether the piece of content needs to be created in the first place. The style guide is also an important vehicle for establishing the Healthcarepedia's voice and tone.

Align content with user motivations and goals

  • Anticipate the questions that users want answered
  • Expect users’ motivations to evolve
  • Put the most important information first
  • Stay positive
  • If appropriate, provide specific action steps and the benefits of taking action
  • Create interactive content when possible

Healthcarepedia is a free educational guide to healthcare in the U.S.

Increase accessibility by presenting content in plain language

  • Keep paragraphs and sentences short and simple
  • Always use language that is familiar to your users
  • Use the active voice
  • Define complex terms
  • Use everyday examples to explain medical or technical concepts
  • Write in a friendly, conversational tone

Healthcarepedia content should be accessible--presented in a simple and clear format that fosters engagement

Present accurate content

  • Up-to-date
  • Cite references from reliable, authoritative sources
  • Content must have verifiable accuracy
  • Link to appropriate examples

Healthcarepedia content should be accurate, up-to-date, and reliable

Stay objective

  • Avoid advocacy and characterize information and issues rather than debating them
  • Avoid providing opinion as fact
  • Explain major points of view, giving due weight with respect to their prominence in an impartial tone
  • Identify opinions as representative of a particular point of view
  • Use reliable, well-regarded sources

Healthcarepedia content should be objective; citing from reliable, high-quality, sources