Style Guide for Addressee/Salutation

ShawnAlis Cusato

Does anyone have a policy on add/sals that uses a style guide?  Like Emily Post?  We are considering using Ms. for all females constituents despite the fact that our school application requires the Title field and married women usually enter Mrs.  Potentially, we'd be changing what had been given to us directly from the constituent or what we had used for years without complaint by the constituent.  The thinking is that most of our add/sals separate married couples and several users don't like Mrs. next to the female first name, e.g. Mrs. Jane Doe & Mr. John Doe becomes Ms. Jane Doe & Mr. John Doe.


I'm wondering if a style guide would suit our needs and help prevent the ad hoc changing of formulas and primary add/sals.  It seems that almost anything is acceptable in terms of addressing people, so I'm not interested in debating with my team which form is correct or proper.  Rather, I want to maintain the integrity of the data we've collected about our constituents, plus I want to avoid (if possible) a wholesale change every few years.


Any suggestions?

JoAnn Strommen

You know if I marked "Mrs." on my paperwork and got mail addressed to "Ms." I would think the org sure doesn't pay attention to detail.  I sure wouldn't change what a constituent had given you. I don't think you'd find that in a style guide either.


I don't understand your statement "the ad hoc changing of formulas and primary add/sals."  In my opinion if you enter appropriate title and have your add/sal formats set correctly for whatever style/format you choose they should work fine.  Why don't your users like Mrs. next to a female name?  If you were addressing your letter to me alone it would be "Mrs. JoAnn Strommen." Why would it be wrong because you choose to add my spouse. (Personally, not a fan of separate names when last name is the same - but that's our style preference.)


Don't know why you'd have a "wholesale change every few years" if you set format formulas correctly.  I set ours and haven't changed for years. 


There are websites that have guidelines for use and there was a lengthy thread about it in the past.  Lots of discussion: male vs. female first, title vs. no title. 


Best wishes sorting it all out.

ShawnAlis Cusato

 

You did a fine job of stating all of my opinions!  Nevertheless, those are issues on the table here regularly.  I'll search for the thread you mention and see if it has more ideas.  Thanks much!

 

Christine Cooke 2

ShawnAlis Cusato:

Does anyone have a policy on add/sals that uses a style guide?  Like Emily Post?  We are considering using Ms. for all females constituents despite the fact that our school application requires the Title field and married women usually enter Mrs.  Potentially, we'd be changing what had been given to us directly from the constituent or what we had used for years without complaint by the constituent.  The thinking is that most of our add/sals separate married couples and several users don't like Mrs. next to the female first name, e.g. Mrs. Jane Doe & Mr. John Doe becomes Ms. Jane Doe & Mr. John Doe.


I'm wondering if a style guide would suit our needs and help prevent the ad hoc changing of formulas and primary add/sals.  It seems that almost anything is acceptable in terms of addressing people, so I'm not interested in debating with my team which form is correct or proper.  Rather, I want to maintain the integrity of the data we've collected about our constituents, plus I want to avoid (if possible) a wholesale change every few years.


Any suggestions?

Here is a government website that tells you all the ways Add/Sals should be formatted.  http://www.formsofaddress.info/USO.html


You say you don't want to debate with your team.  You shouldn't, but -- as an organization you should have a consensus as to how you do want to address peeps in your community.  Some orgs are still very old school and use very formal Add/Sals on everything.  Others are more friendly/informal in a modern sense.  I have attached a copy of the formatting/standardizing rules that have been used at several orgs I have worked at, each has had a couple of tweaks but for the most part, this is what they felt was their standard.

Jill Freidmutter

Christine Cooke:

ShawnAlis Cusato:

Does anyone have a policy on add/sals that uses a style guide?  Like Emily Post?  We are considering using Ms. for all females constituents despite the fact that our school application requires the Title field and married women usually enter Mrs.  Potentially, we'd be changing what had been given to us directly from the constituent or what we had used for years without complaint by the constituent.  The thinking is that most of our add/sals separate married couples and several users don't like Mrs. next to the female first name, e.g. Mrs. Jane Doe & Mr. John Doe becomes Ms. Jane Doe & Mr. John Doe.


I'm wondering if a style guide would suit our needs and help prevent the ad hoc changing of formulas and primary add/sals.  It seems that almost anything is acceptable in terms of addressing people, so I'm not interested in debating with my team which form is correct or proper.  Rather, I want to maintain the integrity of the data we've collected about our constituents, plus I want to avoid (if possible) a wholesale change every few years.


Any suggestions?

Here is a government website that tells you all the ways Add/Sals should be formatted.  http://www.formsofaddress.info/USO.html


You say you don't want to debate with your team.  You shouldn't, but -- as an organization you should have a consensus as to how you do want to address peeps in your community.  Some orgs are still very old school and use very formal Add/Sals on everything.  Others are more friendly/informal in a modern sense.  I have attached a copy of the formatting/standardizing rules that have been used at several orgs I have worked at, each has had a couple of tweaks but for the most part, this is what they felt was their standard.

 

Dear Christine, Thanks so much for your answer. I've never seen the govt website before. The extent of my discoveries have been more ettiquette sites like Emily Post. It's amazing how many different schemas there are for any given topic. I also appreciate the attachment. It shows a way to describe when to use what fairly efficiently. warmly, Jill

Michelle Kolak

ShawnAlis Cusato:

Does anyone have a policy on add/sals that uses a style guide?  Like Emily Post?  We are considering using Ms. for all females constituents despite the fact that our school application requires the Title field and married women usually enter Mrs.  Potentially, we'd be changing what had been given to us directly from the constituent or what we had used for years without complaint by the constituent.  The thinking is that most of our add/sals separate married couples and several users don't like Mrs. next to the female first name, e.g. Mrs. Jane Doe & Mr. John Doe becomes Ms. Jane Doe & Mr. John Doe.


I'm wondering if a style guide would suit our needs and help prevent the ad hoc changing of formulas and primary add/sals.  It seems that almost anything is acceptable in terms of addressing people, so I'm not interested in debating with my team which form is correct or proper.  Rather, I want to maintain the integrity of the data we've collected about our constituents, plus I want to avoid (if possible) a wholesale change every few years.


Any suggestions?

We use informal for our students, alumni, and faculty/staff and formal for everyone else.  I have the defaults set up for addressee/salutations to make it easier when adding new records.  Our policy is that if a constituent asks to be addressed in a specific way, to check the editable box, even if you see the addressee/salutation text in the dropdown.  This way if we audit it does not get changed to the default.

 For instance, we have an alum who asked us not to list his wife's name on any correspondence, so we changed all the joint addressee/saluations and primaries to just him and checked the editable box.  If you looked at the dropdown list, you would see his name without his wife because we have joint and individual formulas, but the editable needs to be checked so that a future audit would not add her back in.  We audit because sometimes a person updating a record and adding a spouse forgets to update the addressee/salutations.

Jill Freidmutter

As long as you re-check every time a name changes, this could work. I'm trying to do away with all "editable" salutation types, becasue we've had a few problems. One example -- A spouse died and we removed her as a spouse but kept a relationship. Normally, the saluations would automatically change to "John Doe" when she was removed as a spouse. Unfortunately the mail we sent still was addressed to "John and Jane Doe" because the salutation was "editable" and didn't change even though the spouse was removed from the record. :-)