Reference guide for articles in English with external target groups

It is important that news articles directed at an external target group and published on the KI website (ki.se) generate interest and trust for KI as a university, workplace and public authority. All visitors – current and future students, researchers, staff and the public – must find the content relevant and accessible. Here follow some guidelines and tips when publishing news in English for external audiences.

KI is a bilingual university. News articles must therefore be made available in British English and Swedish. The language versions are to be linked.

Articles published on ki.se must be written in a way that is both interesting and comprehensible. In support of this aim, the university operates under such governing documents as the Swedish Language Act and the guidelines issued by the Institute for Language and Folklore.

How to format your news article

Apart from using appropriate, simple and comprehensible language, articles should also be formatted in a uniform manner. An article published externally in English on ki.se must have:

This is how an external news article should be formatted.
This is how an external news article should be formatted. Photo: N/A
  1. a clear, captivating headline of no more than two rows
  2. a content-relevant header image that complies with KI’s images checklist
  3. a lead-in of no more than 500 characters summarising the gist of the article
  4. many short paragraphs
  5. sub-headings
  6. quotes by one or more people (in English with “xxxxxx,” says Name Name after the first complete sentence of the quote, not at the end – note position of comma)
  7. photos of quoted people in line with their quotes – place the quote at the top of the text/image block captioned Name Name. Photo: Name Name
  8. a link the interviewee’s full name to their personal webpage.
  9. the person’s title stated after their name – if the person has more than one role at KI, choose the one that is most relevant to the context
  10. title and (linked) department (Department of … ) In English, titles before names are written with an capital first letter. Used after name with lowercase first letter; Name Name, professor of …
  11. a “link box” in the right-hand column supplying further article-related information – departmental news must also link to the department’s homepage
  12. a reference to the interviewee to ensure that the news appears on their personal webpage (Filled in automatically when interviewees are linked and after the article has been saved once).
  13. a maximum of five tags to ensure that the news appears in relevant lists on other ki.se pages.

And in Swedish …

News articles in Swedish are formatted in the same way as news articles in English, but with three differences:

  1. Use dash (“talminus”) instead of quotation marks for quotations. Remember to remove the quotation marks at the end of the quotation as well.
  2. Department is translated as institution and written in lower case.
  3. Titles before names are written in lowercase: (text text) professor Name Name.

Four errors in a news article

1.    Contact cards (used on information pages, but not together with news items).
2.    Quotation blocks as part of the text.
3.    Percent sign. Write out the word percent in both Swedish and English (per cent).
4.    Present interviewees by their first name only. Use first and last names, or last names in English news items.

Check all the way to the research group

In the template for news articles in dupral, there is a block - Groups from Idac - where you check the Department or departments mentioned in the article. Fill in the Idac tree all the way to the research group so that the article appears in all relevant news feeds.

Welcome with questions

You are always welcome to contact KI News, nyheter@ki.se, with questions about the editorial content on ki.se.