Tips for Writing Policies and Procedures

Below are the ICO’s tips for writing effective department policies and procedures.

Before You Write

• Identify the group of people who will read and attempt to comply with your policy. That is your audience. Remember to write for them!
  
• Identify the focus of your policy or procedure. Rigorously stick to it.
  
• Review related university policies for relevant provisions you can reference and to confirm your department policy won’t conflict with them.
  
• Follow BYU’s editorial style.

While You Write

• Get started! Any approach will work, as long as you put words on paper and commit to revising. Here are some common options:

  • Outline first and fill in the details later
    
  • Brain dump—write down everything you know about a practice or process and then organize later
    
  • Interview a department expert on the selected practice or process and write down as much as you can about what they say. (Remember, you can go back to them for more info or clarification as you need it!)
    
• Use plain language. Don’t make your policies and procedures sound like legal documents.
  
• Write in the third person (e.g., the employee, the manager, the department), not the first person (e.g., I, you, and we).
  
• Use active voice (e.g., “The employee will submit the form to the manager who will review and return it within 10 days.”), not passive voice (e.g., “The form will be submitted by the employee and reviewed by the manager.”).
  
• Write out each acronym the first time you use it in a policy so that readers know what it stands for (e.g., “Brigham Young University (BYU)”).
  
• Clearly identify responsibilities, timeframes, and decision-making authority.
  
• Make it last: use positions/titles, not the names of the individuals who currently hold those positions/titles, so the policies won’t need to be revised as frequently.
  
• Provide links to referenced documents or webpages.
  

• Choose your command words carefully.

  • The word “must” signals that an action is required.
    
  • Sometimes the word “will” signals that an action is required, but sometimes it foretells an action, rather than commands.
    
  • The words “should” and “may” signal the possibility that actor will choose to not take an action; they do not necessarily command.
    
  • Generally, avoid the word “shall” because of its commanding and legalistic tone.
• Consider using tables and charts to make difficult material easier to understand. See Legal Documents Policy for examples.
  

After You Write

• Read your policy out loud. This is a fast way to catch missed words, ungrammatical sentences, and other typical writing errors.
  
• Aim to shorten your policy. If you find a policy or procedure is too long for easy reading, it may be good to divide it into multiple, more focused policies.
  
• Have multiple stakeholders read the policy and tell you what they understand their obligations to be under the new policy and where they are confused.
  
• Solicit edits from stakeholders.
  
• Revise, revise, revise.
  
• Publish! Post the policy where the relevant stakeholders and audience can easily find it.
  
• Notify your target audience about the new policy. Provide a way for individuals to ask questions about the policy and how to comply with it.
  
• Keep revising as necessary!