Marrowbank Landcare brand voice
Do and don't slide with a sample line for every rule
A do and don't slide teaches a standard by pairing each rule with its opposite, so the reader learns what good looks like and what to avoid in the same glance. This one sets the brand voice for Marrowbank Landcare, a fictional community landcare charity, with a sample line on each side.
What is on the slide
- Title
- Brand Voice, Marrowbank. How Marrowbank Landcare writes to volunteers and donors. Each row pairs a rule with its opposite.
- Do
- Name the place: "We planted 400 trees on Gully Creek." Thank hours as well as gifts: "38 of you gave 212 hours in May." Use plain words: "weeds", not "invasive biomass". Say what a gift buys: "$30 plants and guards 10 trees." Invite: "Come along if you can, morning tea is on us." Credit landholders by first name, with their permission.
- Don't
- Speak vaguely: "We are making a real difference." Thank donors and forget the volunteers who did the work. Use jargon: "riparian remediation outcomes". Ask for money without saying what it will do. Guilt people: "The creek will die without you." Publish a farm name or a face without consent.
When this is the right slide
Choose this slide when a standard has clear opposites that people will apply themselves, such as a brand voice, and each rule reads best beside the mistake it prevents.
What to swap it for
Context: Two Column Bullets. Swap to the two column bullets layout when the guidance falls into two lists that do not pair up row by row as opposites.
What this slide shows
A title reads Brand Voice, Marrowbank, with a framing line: how Marrowbank Landcare writes to volunteers and donors, where each row pairs a rule with its opposite. Two tinted columns sit side by side, divided by a thin rule, headed Do and Don't. The do column has six rows, each with a tick in a teal circle. Name the place: we planted 400 trees on Gully Creek. Thank hours as well as gifts: 38 of you gave 212 hours in May. Use plain words: weeds, not invasive biomass. Say what a gift buys: $30 plants and guards 10 trees. Invite: come along if you can, morning tea is on us. Credit landholders by first name, with their permission. The don't column has six rows, each with a cross. Speak vaguely: we are making a real difference. Thank donors and forget the volunteers who did the work. Use jargon: riparian remediation outcomes. Ask for money without saying what it will do. Guilt people: the creek will die without you. Publish a farm name or a face without consent. The layout takes exactly six items a side, so a sixth pair on consent joins the five voice rules.
When this is the right slide
Use it when a standard has clear opposites and the audience will apply it themselves: brand voice, style guides, safety practice, customer service, code review or meeting etiquette. It suits volunteer inductions, staff onboarding and agency briefings, where people need to absorb a set of rules quickly. It is the wrong slide when the guidance has no natural opposite for each point, because inventing a don't for every do produces straw men; two columns of unpaired bullet points serve better then. It is also the wrong slide for a detailed policy, which needs the full written guide with reasons and exceptions.
How to adapt it
First, pair the rules row by row so each don't is the mistake its do prevents, and read the pairs aloud to check they really match. Second, add a short sample line to as many rules as fit, because examples teach faster than adjectives. Third, make the don'ts real mistakes people have made, ideally taken from past material, so the slide reads as useful rather than preachy. For a construction site, the pairs might be wear eye protection when cutting against cutting without it. For a support team, they might be give the customer a time against saying soon. Keep each item under 80 characters, so the rows stay on one or two lines and the two columns stay level. If there are more than six rules worth keeping, choose the six that people most often get wrong for the slide and leave the rest in the written guide, which the slide should name in the speaker notes.
What makes this slide work
Each row is a matched pair
Name the place sits opposite speak vaguely. Thank hours as well as gifts sits opposite forgetting the volunteers. Say what a gift buys sits opposite asking without saying what it will do. Reading across a row gives one rule from both sides, which is faster to learn than two separate lists that the reader has to match up.
Sample lines show the rule in use
We planted 400 trees on Gully Creek. 38 of you gave 212 hours in May. $30 plants and guards 10 trees. The do column quotes lines a volunteer could reuse, and the don't column quotes the vague or guilt laden versions to avoid. Writers learn faster from examples than from adjectives such as warm or clear.
Consent is treated as a voice rule
Credit landholders by first name, with their permission, paired with publish a farm name or a face without consent. Putting consent on the voice slide makes the point that respect for landholders and volunteers is part of how the charity sounds, not just a privacy policy kept somewhere else on the website.
Questions people ask
Should the dos and don'ts be paired row by row?
Yes, wherever possible. When the first do and the first don't address the same concern, the reader sees the contrast directly: name the place against speaking vaguely. Unpaired lists force the reader to match them up, and some never will. If a rule has no natural opposite, it probably belongs in a separate list of principles rather than on this slide.
Why include sample lines on a do and don't slide?
Because rules about writing are abstract until someone sees them applied. Use plain words is easy to agree with and easy to ignore; weeds, not invasive biomass, shows exactly what it means. A sample line also gives volunteers something they can copy, which is often how a style guide actually gets used.
How many pairs fit on one slide?
Six, at about 80 characters each, which is what this layout takes. That is enough for a brand voice summary and short enough to remember. A full style guide will have more rules; put the rest in the written guide and keep the slide for the six that matter most, or that people most often get wrong.
When should a do and don't slide be split?
When the audience writes for different channels with different rules. Social posts and grant applications need different voices, so a charity might keep one slide for donor and volunteer messages and another for formal reports. Splitting by audience keeps each slide short and stops a rule for one channel being applied where it does not fit.
Can a do and don't slide work for things other than writing?
Yes. It suits any standard with clear opposites: safety practices on site, customer service phone manner, code review habits, or photography rules for events. The pairing works the same way. The key is that each don't is a real mistake people make, not a straw man, so the slide teaches rather than lectures.
How should a do and don't slide be presented?
Read across the rows, not down the columns. Do name the place, don't speak vaguely; do thank hours, don't forget volunteers. Reading across keeps each pair together. Then ask the room for a recent example of a don't they have seen, because recognising the mistake in real material is how the rule sticks.
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