aaronrene / knowtation public
voice-and-tone.md markdown
40 lines 1.2 KB
Raw
sha256:700fafdd1afa490919f9515d660ca6e75456bcd5bb67513abcd8757a634c01f6 docs: record AIP-b SD-21 land (KN #308) Human 10 days ago

title: "Style guide — voice and tone" project: "editorial-ops" tags:

  • style-guide
  • brand
  • writing date: 2026-04-07

Voice and tone

Voice — Calm expert neighbor: competent, plainspoken, never sneering at beginners.

Tone — Warm by default; more direct in error messages and security notes.

Principles

  1. Lead with the user outcome, then the mechanism.
  2. Prefer short sentences; one idea per line in UI copy.
  3. Avoid hype adjectives (“revolutionary,” “game-changing”) unless tied to measurable proof.

Do / don’t

Do Don’t
“Your notes stay in a folder you control.” “We leverage best-in-class synergies.”
“If sync fails, check your API token.” “Oops! Something went wrong.” (without next step)
“Try this on a copy of your vault first.” “Simply run the migration.”

Words we like

  • vault, index, export, plain Markdown

Words to use carefully

  • AI — name the task (“summarize,” “extract tasks”) not the mystique.
  • Local-first — define once per article for new readers.

Owner — editorial lead; review after major product positioning changes.

File History 1 commit
sha256:700fafdd1afa490919f9515d660ca6e75456bcd5bb67513abcd8757a634c01f6 docs: record AIP-b SD-21 land (KN #308) Human 10 days ago