FindAUniversity's Editorial Guidelines

On this website, we produce two main forms of content:

Guides

Our long form content is referred to as our guide pages and is usually above 1,000 words in length. Guides explain specific topics in detail and answer the questions readers are likely to have about them.

Individual pages attract organic traffic to our websites by meeting the needs of people searching on Google or similar platforms. Together, they provide a ‘library’ of useful content that helps our websites serve as a comprehensive, high-quality information resource.

Our tone is friendly, knowledgeable and easy to read.

Blogs

Our short form content is referred to as our blog pages and tends to be between 500-750 words. Blogs are shorter ‘bitesize’ pieces, offering specific viewpoints and experiences or providing relevant news updates.

Blogs are credited by specific authors (staff, students, academics, universities) and often present their views or experiences using a first-person voice. They explore certain details of a topic, present counterpoints or alternative perspectives, offer accessible summaries for broader topics, and share interesting experiences.

We have three broad categories for blog content:

• Guest posts which are submitted by students, academics or other authors with a story or viewpoint to share about postgraduate study.
• Staff posts which are written by members of the Student Engagement Team. They sometimes present an author’s own experiences or opinions but are more likely to focus on general topics.
• News posts which cover important stories such as new funding announcements or higher education reforms. Their primary focus is to share information and tell a reader where to go for further detail (such as a relevant guide page).

How do we ensure the quality of our content?

Relevancy

We understand what makes the postgraduate student journey different and unique so we only ever create content that is relevant for our audience. It’s why we have two different websites (FindAMasters and FindAPhD) and why we try to get as much student-created content as possible, to balance our informative guides with real-life individual student experiences that serve the user need.

Disclosure

We aim to offer the most complete resources we can, but we don’t risk misleading our audience. If we can research a question and give a definitive answer or a useful guideline, we will. If not, we’ll acknowledge that and tell the reader where they might be able to find more detailed information.

Verification

All facts or statistics are cited with source and we only ever include information that we’re able to verify. We count reputable sources as a university, institution, government body etc. If it can’t be verified, we will not include it in our content.

Proofreading

All content is proof-read by an in-house editor for accuracy of spelling and grammar. As a UK-based website, we use British English as our spelling and grammar check. We also run reports on spelling issues on the website and work within the team to fix them.

Impartiality

Our content is impartial and unbiased. We aim to inform our audience about the postgraduate study choices available to them, not persuade them to make specific choices. We provide a range of resources for prospective postgraduate students, including course listings, study events, open day information, information advice and guidance content and more. We will mention them whenever it’s relevant and useful for the reader, but we don’t create content just to advertise our other services. Universities and other higher education providers are our partners, so we will sometimes refer to them in our content, but we do so in a way that doesn’t represent preferential treatment or editorial bias. The user need comes before anything else.