Manuscripts, scientific study reports, conference papers, a statistical analysis plan, or a compilation of it all for an upcoming regulatory submission: you name it. The list is endless, and time seems never enough to get it all done during a regular working day. When finally getting to your scientific writing task in the more quiet evening hours, you really want to dive into the work, and not search for the correct template to use...
In this post we list the 5 reasons why you need a corporate style guide, and how it will save you a lot of time.
When you work as a Scientist, it is important that you are supporting your team at work in their current research efforts, yet at the same time keep time aside to write up the latest results from your newest research findings. The next conference is already on the horizon, and a poster presentation needs to be prepared, while you also try to juggle writing up that manuscript, which you are planning to submit with the * journal of your choice* in the next 10 days.
Juggling different priorities
In the middle of all of this, a pile of scientific study reports needs to be drafted and aligned for an upcoming regulatory submission. It seems like you are working on 10 different projects at the same time, juggling different priorities while being available for team meetings and experiments in the lab during your precious working time. Often, the time in the evening, when you are already out of the office, gets loaded with these writing tasks, because only then you have the necessary silence and peace to deal with that scientific study report.
So, when you finally have the time to sit down and write up the Introduction to your research paper, you find yourself sitting in front of an empty Microsoft Word document. Where was that document again, that you used last time? This would come in very handy now, if only you could find where you saved it…
Too many cooks...
Or another scenario: you have got your own template ready on your computer, but it looks different from the manuscript layout that you just received from your colleague, who already spent hours working on that manuscript, which is so urgently due. In this case, starting from your own template does not make sense, yet working with the template from your colleague would mean you would have to realign a lot of the formatting. Especially that title page looks so different in this report. You are sure this was not the way you formatted it last time.
Timesaver: Corporate Style Guide
If one or more of the above scenarios sound familiar to you, you would certainly benefit from a corporate style guide, which comes with developed templates that already have pre-defined title pages, heading styles, table and figures formats, text styles, and so much more.
Developing a Corporate Style Guide for your Research Team is usually a quick process, and can be finalized within 1-3 weeks, depending on the number of templates that you would like to receive with it.
Here are 5 reasons why a Corporate Style Guide is a good investment for your organization:
There is one central style guide document, which describes all necessary elements related to format and layout, defining each single element in a document, such as the page layout, the title page, Table of Contents, abstract, body text, heading styles, references styles, etc.
The style guide also describes language and punctuation elements, such as which language to use (e.g., US vs. UK English), how to punctuate Latin abbreviations (e.g., vs. ie), which punctuation to use with numbers (e.g., how to display larger numbers with 4 or more digits), how to use spaces when describing mathematical formulae, etc.
You define the most utilized templates in your organization, and the WordifyScience team develops these for you, based on your unique corporate style guide. This way, you don’t have to start from scratch when writing a new manuscript; and you can be sure the format will exactly resemble that of your last statistical analysis plan. Other examples for these templates are: a scientific study report, a conference paper, a project report addressed to the Executive Management Team, a team update, and much more.
The corporate style guide is saved in the most recent version in a central location on your organization’s server, where everyone in your team has access. Not only will you always have access to the most updated version of the style guide, you will also be sure that the linked templates will always be the most updated ones. You will not have to search anymore for that manuscript template that you used last time. Nor will you have to align that title page with that of the other research report you have been working on.
Your collaboration with other internal and external stakeholders becomes much more efficient; in case of doubt, you reference to the corporate style guide, and scientific editing companies such as WordifyScience will know exactly how to format and proofread your regulatory submission report to the FDA.
If you still do not use a Corporate Style Guide at your research organization or academic institution, feel free to reach out to WordifyScience. The experienced WordifyScience team is happy to help you develop a custom-tailored style guide that is exactly targeted to your needs. Contact us today to request your personal quote.
"The corporate style guide WordifyScience has developed for our Behavioral Science team has tremendously helped each individual scientist in our team, and has given our team as a whole entity a stronger appearance and impact when communicating with other departments in our big corporation. We no longer wasted precious time trying to make our scientific reports look alike. Starting from the templates that WordifyScience had developed for us, a huge burden was lifted, as all necessary styles and formats were already in place, for example the standardized title pages; this way our corporate behavioral science team identity and the entire corporate identity was clearly visible across all our scientific study reports. We can highly recommend working with WordifyScience. They can save you valuable time."
Behavioral Scientist Tobacco Industry Corporation (anonymous)
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