Smart Brief Writing Style

Smart brief helps to create clear, engaging and memorable communication. With this style, you should focus on the who, what, when and where. Keeping these stories brief and easy to scan with simple and conversational words helps readers to scan quickly and improve their comprehension of the story. These type of stories are good for parking updates, construction notices, road closures, HR updates, awards and honors nominations and internal funding opportunities.

Human Resources Reminder

Human Resources’ voting policy provides employees with a reasonable period of paid time away from work, not to exceed three hours, to vote.

• Tennessee’s early voting period is Oct. 19–Nov. 3. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.
• Deadline to return absentee ballot by mail: Nov. 8

Vanderbilt has teamed up with TurboVote, a platform that allows users to get help with voter registration, sign up for election reminders, and locate specific vote-by-mail information. For more details on early voting, visit the Vote Early in Tennessee guide.

Facilities Construction Notice

Medical Center Drive will close in both directions to nonemergency traffic on Feb. 25, from 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., for the installation of a crane.

• Outgoing traffic from East Garage will be directed to the right onto 21st Avenue.
• Contact the Facilities Department with questions.

Things You Need to Know Writing Style

In an effort to catch readers attention immediately, we recommend using bullet points at the top of the story to hit major points. These type of stories are good for sustainability updates, FutureVU updates and Future of Work updates; to name a few examples.

Sustainability Announcement

Headline: Vanderbilt and Nashville undertake bold new renewable energy partnership to address climate change

5 things you need to know:

1. Vanderbilt University and the city of Nashville, Tennessee, have announced a Green Invest partnership with the Tennessee Valley Authority and Nashville Electric Service.
2. Vanderbilt’s initial partnership was announced in January 2020.
3. The program will allow the region to take a bold step forward in expanding availability and access to renewable energy at a critical time in global efforts to address the threat of climate change.
4. The renewable power for Vanderbilt and Nashville will come from a solar farm, scheduled for completion in 2023, to be built in Tullahoma, Tennessee.
5. Vanderbilt will reach its renewable energy goal just over four years after the university made its initial commitment in 2019.

[Full story written out beneath above bullet points]