The basics

Let’s start with our name

Our full name is the Society of Tissue Viability. When we want to abbreviate it, we use ‘the Society’. We never use STV or SoTV. 

What about tissue viability?

As much as possible, we talk about ‘skin health and wound healing’ or ‘skin health and wound management’ rather than ‘tissue viability’. This is all part of our ambition to make skin health and wound healing everyone’s responsibility – not just TVNs. We do still use tissue viability when talking about Tissue Viability Nurses or academic study of the subject. Tissue viability is only capitalised when it’s part of a job title or service e.g. ‘Specialist Nurse – Tissue Viability’

Our brand personality

We want to sound bold, contemporary and clear. Here’s how we can do that: 

Say things in the simplest way possible

Think about the most important points you want to get across – the one or two things you want someone to understand or do. Make these stand out by saying them as clearly as you can and putting them right at the start. 

Keep sentences short

Aim to get to the point quickly and don’t overload your sentences with too many thoughts. A useful guide is around 25 words per sentence, around four sentences per paragraph, and around six to eight words per headline. This helps create a clear narrative that people can easily navigate and helps get your message across too.

Think conversation, not research paper

When writing, we can sometimes fall back on formal or academic language.  We don’t need to do this. In fact, using more everyday language in writing makes for a more engaging read for everyone (academics included) and helps more people care about our work. 

Write like a human, not an institution

We try to give our writing a more personal, human touch by using ‘we’ ‘you’, ‘us’ and ‘our’. This helps us sound like real people rather than a remote, impersonal organisation.You can get more tips in our writing for the Society guidelines.