Writing style

Clear words, specific claims.

Voice

Put the work first. Name the project, activity or finding. Use plain language and explain specialised terms.

Let evidence set the tone. Use verified facts, dates and quotations. Say what is known and what remains uncertain. Avoid inflated claims.

Write as a colleague. Use short to medium declarative sentences. Use "we" when the foundation speaks.

Avoid promotional adjectives, inflated significance, forced lists of three, and constructions like "not just X, but Y".

Punctuation

Do not use em dashes or en dashes. Use a comma, a colon, a period, or rewrite the sentence. Write ranges as "4 to 6".

Naming

The one-sentence introduction: The Open Science Foundation is a Swiss foundation that funds and conducts open science.

Write "Open Science Foundation" in full on first mention, then "the foundation". Never shorten it to "OSF": not in copy, metadata, alt text, file names or registries. Search engines read "OSF" as the Open Science Framework (osf.io) of the Center for Open Science, and have merged the two organisations in their results. When you mean osf.io, write "Open Science Framework".

The legal name, Open Science Stiftung (Open Science Foundation), stays as written in legal contexts.

The Open Science Institute is funded and governed by the foundation. Write its full name on first mention, then "the institute" or "OSI".

When you mention Etherlaken, link the first mention to etherlaken.com.

Quotations and facts

Every date, name, number and quotation must come from a source. A placeholder for a quotation in a template is not permission to invent one.