For questions of spelling and grammar, see the online Webster’s New World College Dictionary and punctuation web pages associated with the AP Style Guide
Use the first spelling presented.
This document changes & updates throughout the years due to the constantly changing nature of communications and social media.
Updated 5.1.25
General Information
LBCA’s Voice
LBCA seeks to maintain a casual yet professional tone in all external and internal communications. It is our community, our members, and our board. Aim to make all writing “you” centric, more about the reader than the writer. Use active words and avoid passive voice. Be quick to apologize for any mistakes, and do not be afraid to interact—especially on social media (except negative nellies; some people can’t be made happy).
We use our website as our “Sunday best” voice, our more formal conversational tone. If you think of voice in Sunday dress terms, consider LBCA a more “contemporary” church than a high church. Social media is casual.
Association Name
For the first usage in writing, please use Lake Burton Civic Association; on all subsequent occurrences, use LBCA. For formal writing, never begin a paragraph or sentence with our acronym. Then LBCA is acceptable.
Exceptions: Social media postings are due to character limitations.
Please double-check everything before hitting posting or sending!
Law of the Grapevine
In the communications area and throughout LBCA, we want to follow the “Law of the Grapevine” when communicating. We believe communications/word of mouth can and do spread like a grapevine in any organization, i.e., from the root, and then the word spreads.
Here at LBCA, the communications flow this way:
- Executive Board
- Board
- Membership
- Outside Community
Our mailing address is:
LBCA
PO Box 1988
Clayton, GA 30525
Phone Number:
706-690-4283
Grammar Guidelines
Headlines, Sub Headlines, etc.
- Capitalize the first and last words.
- Capitalize all nouns, verbs, adjectives, and pronouns, regardless of the length of the word.
- Capitalize prepositions of four or more letters.
- Capitalize conjunctions of four or more letters (like, unless, and than) as well if and how and why.
- Verbs, even short ones, should always be capitalized.
- Pronouns should always be capitalized.
- Use of ampersand (&) is okay.
- Use of numerals (1-9) is okay.
Do not capitalize
- Articles (unless it is the first word in the sentence or follows a colon.
- Prepositions of three or fewer letters (such as of, in, and for)
- Most conjunctions of three or fewer letters (like as, and, or, and but)
- The “to” in the infinitive form (e.g. to blog)
Other
- Avoid parenthesis if possible
- Use bullet points & lists as people scan more than read these days
- Say it clearly & concisely
- Avoid underlining as now people associate that with hyperlinks
- One space between sentences
- Use justify text as your alignment option
General/Other
ampersand (&). Use only when part of a company’s formal name. It should never be used in the place of and except for social media, bullet points, and titles.
committee name (s) Generally, committee names are not proper nouns and should not be capitalized. However, when used with a committee chair’s title, please refer to title name rules.
composition titles.
Apply the guidelines listed here to book titles, computer and video game titles, movie titles, opera titles, play titles, poem titles, album and song titles, radio and television program titles, and the titles of lectures, speeches, and works of art.
The guidelines, followed by a block of examples:
—Capitalize the principal words, including prepositions and conjunctions of four or more letters.
—Capitalize an article — the, a, an — or words of fewer than four letters if it is the first or last word in a title.
—Put quotation marks around the names of all such works except the Bible, the Quran, other holy books, and books primarily catalogs of reference material. In addition to catalogs, this category includes almanacs, directories, dictionaries, encyclopedias, gazetteers, handbooks, and similar publications. Do not use quotation marks around such software titles as WordPerfect or Windows.
—Translate a foreign title into English unless the work is generally known by its foreign name.
dates. Use the following format for dates: day of the week, month, date. This helps to avoid confusion. Years are rarely included unless needed for clarity. Wherever possible, we BoldFace dates and times to help them be noticed.
January 2022, Jan 2, May 8
- When a date appears after a month, don’t add st, nd, rd, th
- Only use those add-ons when they precede the month
Don’t forget the second comma: “Feb 14, 2022, was the target date.”
The meeting is Mon, Mar 23, 2022
For social media, numerals and abbreviations are acceptable.
The meeting is Mon, 3/23/22
- Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat (three letters, without periods, to facilitate tabular composition
ellipsis (…) the proper use of the ellipsis is when omitting a word, phrase, line, paragraph, or more from a quoted passage. This rule has become somewhat subjective on social media as of late.
months. Capitalize the names of months in all uses. When a month is used with a specific date, abbreviate only Jan, Feb, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, and Dec. Spell out when using alone, or with a year alone.
- When a phrase lists only a month and a year, do not separate the year with commas. When a phrase refers to a month, day and year, set off the year with commas.
January 2016 was a cold month. January 2 was the coldest day of the month. His birthday is May 8. She testified that the 3rd of January was when the accident occurred.
In tabular material, use these three-letter forms without a period: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec.
parenthesis( ). In general, we try to avoid the use of parentheses in text, as we prefer clarity so parenthesis are not needed. Parenthesis are acceptable to introduce an acronym into text.
Lake Burton Civic Association (LBCA) is happy to announce…
social media. LBCA relies heavily on social media for both internal and external communications. In general, avoid posts using all caps and over-dependence on exclamation points. Use strong verbs and adjectives to get your point across instead.
time.
8:30 am., 2-5 pm, noon and midnight are not 12 noon or 12 midnight.
- Note: am and pm do not use periods
titles.
When a person’s title precedes their name, capitalize the title. When a person’s title is listed after their name, it is not capitalized.
Lake Burton Civic Association President Chip Groome said, “This has been a stellar year for us.”
“This has been a stellar year for us,” said Chip Groome, LBCA president.
years. 2022-23 is an accepted format.
For years, watch the apostrophe. It’s the 1920s or the ’80s, not 1920’s or 80’s.
Brand Specific Guidelines
Brand Words to Know
- Ski Patriots
- Summer Vibes Concerts (SVC)
- Burton Bash
- Tour of Homes (TOH)
- Golf Tournament
- Wooden Boat Parade and Show
LBCA Branding
To create a consistent LBCA brand, please include the communications committee in all your pre-planning and planning efforts for any branded LBCA products. We want to speak with one voice.
This includes all social media and printed products.
Interactions with Public
Always be courteous and friendly when responding to members or non-members on social media. If possible, begin with thank you (thank you for reaching out, thank you for noticing). Many times, the best way to carry a conversation forward is to reach out privately.
This same principle applies when replying to emails–remember, a complaint is a gift!
Guidance for Event Communications
From experience, we have learned that our members respond best when we open only one event registration at a time. Three-fourths of our members only live here part-time, and when they are here, they are on vacation, so they are not reading their emails with their fullest attention. We must keep it simple!
We have developed the following guidelines to help us communicate clearly, especially for events with registration:
- Send the first email one month in advance and begin the social campaign.*
- Send the second email to those who have not responded one week later.
- Send the third email to those who have not responded one week later.
- Send a text to all those who have not responded on the last day to register.
- Keep up the social campaign during this period.
*Run a social campaign with all of LBCA’s events during the season. This usually begins in mid-March and runs through Labor Day.
Non-Registration Events
For LBCA events not requiring registration, we usually do not send out emails just for that one event, but promote them in the following ways:
- Our social channels
- Our monthly newsletter
- Website newsfeed,
- For events during holiday weekend, with a special email detailing all the events for that weekend.