When and how to place your content in time: the DATE Code

In this quick podcast, we talk about another way to make your content as easy to understand for your readers as possible: Make it self-contained. Don't refer to imprecise times like "new," "last week," or "next summer" when you can say "September 2024." Be specific, clear, and aware of what kind of content you are writing. Blogs, for example, are generally published with a date stamp, and have a place in time. We consider "evergreen" assets like product pages or case studies, for example, to be more timeless. Write accordingly!

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Episode Transcript

Carl Richards (00:07):
Hi, I'm Carl from OSP. And this is communicate
connect, grow the OSP podcast.
On today's episode, we'retalking about avoiding dating
your content with the editingcode date. If you want to be a
more effective writer, a moretransparent editor, develop
clear strategic thinking orlearn from our network of expert
friends and colleagues. That'swhat we're here for. We divide

(00:29):
our episodes across threethemes, communicate, connect,
and grow. This is a communicateepisode, and we're talking about
keeping your content currentwith our editorial code date.

(01:00):
The DATE editing code falls intothe word choice phase of the
editing process. And it's aboutkeeping your content self
contained. In our documentationabout this code, it says stay
current and relevant. Don't dateyour content with phrases like
last September, earlier thisyear. And recently,

Christine Beuhler (01:21):
I'm Christine Bueller. I'm a Communication
Consultant on the team at openstrategy partners. And my day to
day is working on writing andediting and various pieces of
communication for our clients.
So the editing code DATE justmeans don't date your content,

(01:47):
keep it evergreen, don't saythings like in 2019 or last
month. That's what it means.

Felicity Brand (02:01):
G'day, I'm Felicity brand. I am a writer
and editor at open strategypartners. The DATE editing code
in a nutshell, we say don't dateyour content. I think DATE is a
deceptively simple code. Sothere's a few layers to it, I
think the idea is to keep yourcontent self contained. Don't

(02:21):
assume reader knowledge. Sothere's this school of thought
in technical communication,which is abbreviated to EPO,
which stands for every page ispage one. So that's what I mean
by keeping your content selfcontained, and being aware of
context. So we're going to diginto this. But essentially, with

(02:42):
date, you don't want to alienateyour audience by obliquely
referencing things, actions orcontent from the past. So you
want to as the writer, make iteasy for your readers, you've
got to do the hard work, make iteasy for your readers so that
they feel comfortable consumingyour content without feeling

(03:04):
like they've missed out onsomething or they're coming in
in the middle of a party that isreferencing things from before,
or events that they've missedout on the DATE code. It's about
more than staying relevant andcurrent. It's about doing the
work as an author to make iteasy for your readers. And that

(03:25):
work is shoring up your contentso that it's self contained. If
you refer to things happeningfrom the past, you risk
alienating your readers, youdon't want to make them dig
around to understand what you'rereferring to. So provide it all
on a platter so that the readercan situate themselves in your

(03:47):
content. A lot of content thisthese days has a publish date.
But other content may not suchas that an a case studies
landing pages. So a datetimestamp is a powerful and
clear marker of the age of yourcontent. So you can rely on that
and you shouldn't bake inreferences to the past or future

(04:08):
in your sentences. If you've gotan article on blog, that's
aging, if you need to, you cancome back and update it later.
There is some evidence thatdouble touching of pages
improves SEO search engineoptimization. Anyway, some
examples of referencing time inyour content might be earlier

(04:28):
this year, recently, comingsoon. Last September.

Jeffrey A. McGuire (04:32):
Hey, this is Jeffrey A McGuire. I'm a co
founder at open strategypartners. Yes, it's all my
fault. The editing code DATEcomes from a time in my career
when I was still in engineeringat what was becoming a very
successful startup. It wasbefore I made my official job
move to marketing andcommunications. A big part of my

(04:53):
job was writing documentationfor the Drupal content
management system that was wasthe subject of what we were
doing, as well as some in housesoftware and enhancements and
ways to use Drupal. And my bosspointed out to me that certain
ways of writing content, give ita short shelf life, there's a
lot of content that we want tobe relevant as, as long as it's

(05:16):
still accurate. So don't dateyour content. And this comes
down to a couple of simplethings to look out for. Don't
write next year, don't writethis year. Also to not be
hemisphere. Just don't writeabout seasons, by the way, don't
say this summer or this winter,because in Australia, and in
Berlin, those mean two differentthings. In any case, be careful

(05:40):
about whether your contentshould be dated or not. If it's
about a specific conference, aspecific party, a specific
event, something then of course,hey, September 2021, this thing
is happening middle of the year,whatever or software release, as
soon as you're writing contentthat could be valuable or
interesting, or help people makea decision later, you should

(06:03):
avoid the temptation to say new,better recent, all of those
kinds of words.

Carl Richards (06:10):
As an editor, how would you use this writing code
in your work day

Christine Beuhler (06:14):
as an editor, using the DATE editing code is
pretty simple. When I'm makingmy way through a piece in
stages, I'll just be scanningand highlighting any examples of
dating which I don't really haveto do that often. Because it's

(06:35):
everyone knows not to do it atopen strategy partners.
Generally, I don't have to useit that much. Every once in a
while, a date might sneak itsway in. But for the most part,
everyone's got a handle on it. Idon't end up highlighting any

(06:57):
examples of the year before orthree years ago,

Felicity Brand (07:01):
when I'm working as an editor. Usually, the DATE
code stands out pretty easily,it's easy to spy. And I think
that's just down to an editorhaving a fresh pair of eyes. And
generally it's quite easy toremove the offending content. In
the editing process. I do usethe DATE code to ask questions
of the author to let themreflect and decide on the best

(07:25):
course of action. So in somecases, including reference to
time could be part of a broaderstrategy. That's where we're
hanging content on a timeframe.
But in most cases, I thinkcontent with the DATE code can
be resolved by choosingdifferent words, just reef
rephrasing a sentence. And thoseword choices are usually about
being clear and being morespecific, rather than being

(07:49):
vague. So rather than say, lastSeptember, give the exact date
the sixth of September 1975.

Jeffrey A. McGuire (07:57):
As an editor, one of the calls I'm
making when I am preparing tolook at a piece to see if
there's anything I can do for itis to understand its purpose. So
we not only have to understandwho it's written for, what
challenges they have, and allthat stuff that we prepare and
think about when we havestrategy planning, make a brief
write an outline, and so on, Ineed to understand the function

(08:20):
of the piece and what it's tiedto. In my mind, somehow there
are pieces that are time bound,and have an expiry date. And
there are pieces that can go onfor some longer amount of time,
maybe not forever, but maybe aslong as the version of the
software is still supported. Ormaybe as long as people like
cheese or I mean, we don't havea cheese client right now, but

(08:43):
reach out. So the function ofthe piece for me somehow in my
brain, there's a voice that saysthis piece should avoid time
words, or can have time words.

Carl Richards (08:56):
In your draft editing as a writer, here's how
you can explore this code.

Christine Beuhler (09:01):
As a writer, when I'm using the DATE editing
code, unless it's something thatis time sensitive, like a press
release or update to a system,we try to make sure that our
pieces our evergreen, which justmeans that they are staying

(09:21):
relevant throughout theirlifetime. Part of that is you
know, just making sure that thethings we're talking about are
sort of timeless, common senseadvice that is not going to
become irrelevant.

Felicity Brand (09:39):
When we think about the DATE code. When you're
writing. It's not a cardinal sinto reference time we live in a
linear temporal society, andtime moves forward. The key with
this code is about avoidingdating your content as much as
possible. You want to keepeverything current and relevant.
So Rather than saying recently,you added date, if readers come

(10:02):
to your content in six monthstime from search engine recently
will have lost all meaning. Sothat means the author needs to
do the hard work of making thecontent self contained by
establishing context, and notassuming reader knowledge.
obliquely, referencing codesprints from three months ago,
may seem like a good idea interms of creating a feeling of

(10:26):
shared knowledge in a community,but a reader coming in cold is
going to feel on the outer andmay fear that they're missing
key information. So rely oncontext, be specific about your
dates, and try to remember thatyou're welcoming all readers,

Jeffrey A. McGuire (10:43):
as a writer, essentially, if I am suggesting
or inviting my readers to takeaction, and that action needs to
be within a certain timeframe.
So buy an event ticket, get acoupon discount on something,
perhaps make plans, somehow, Ithink time words are

(11:07):
appropriate. There is however, amajority of the content that we
do, I think that doesn't needtime words, because that'll just
make it feel out of place or outof context, or somehow help it
expire when it doesn't need toso so we really try and avoid
new and improved in the sense oftime, or recently, or next month

(11:29):
are those time words that don'tmake any sense. If there's not a
publishing date on that I cansee on the page, or I don't know
if it was written in 2017, or2021. So you need to understand
whether your piece is sitting ina certain moment in time. And
that's important, or it has afunction that's not tied to a
particular time.

Carl Richards (11:53):
As a reader, here's why this editing code
might be really important

Christine Beuhler (11:57):
for a reader the DATE editing code, I think
it just gives them someassurance that the piece is not
a relevant and that it's stillapplies. If you're reading
through a blog, and it saysthree years ago, I mean,
technology moves at a prettyfast clip. And it's possible

(12:19):
that they're going to look forsomething more relevant and
think like, oh, this doesn'tapply anymore. Yeah, I think for
the readers, just just makingsure that what they're reading
is relevant, and it's stillapplicable to today,

Felicity Brand (12:38):
one of the first things I usually do as a reader
is look for a date timestamp ona piece of writing, I don't
discount content that is manyyears old. I just like to know
the context, I like to know whenit was written, I think words
written 10 years ago, if they'rewell written and well
researched, still useful andrelevant. So dating your content

(13:00):
in that way isn't bad, you justdon't want to bake it into your
sentences. As a reader, Iappreciate when the author has
made things clear for me. So Idon't have to work hard to
understand and want to feelincluded. Even if I didn't
attend that event or know aboutthat product launch. If the
relevance is explained, I canstill consume that content that

(13:21):
refers to them. There are somewords that indicate time, when
I'm editing and thinking aboutthe DATE code, it's important to
look for words that aren'tobvious time words. For example,
I saw a sentence recently, thatwas something like, you know, X
product has a lot of benefits.
And we've just published a guideto show you how they work. So
that weren't just is implyingtime. We've recently published a

(13:44):
guide. And when I was editingthat I suggested, we remove that
word just because peoplelearning on this article in six
months time, it's not reallyrelevant that you've published
that recently. So we changed,the author and I arrived at a
solution for that to just changethe words, x product has a lot
of benefits, and we recommendyou read our guide to understand

(14:07):
how they work tip for youngplayers. There are words that
aren't obviously about time thatcan still indicate time that can
still date your content.

Jeffrey A. McGuire (14:18):
There are a whole series of kinds of
communication that do reallywell to have a date on them best
laser printers of 2021 yourcandidates for the 2022
election. The new softwarereleased that happened on such
and such a date means that youwill be supported three years

(14:40):
for free until such and suchthose are all located in a place
in time. However, when we'retalking about the advantages of
choosing a particular piece ofsoftware, when we're talking
about the business challengesthat our clients product could
help address and the outcomesthat would be better If I can

(15:00):
help a CTO, a CFO, a developer,understand that I see them and
their challenges and I and I'msuggesting that we could give
them these benefits. It doesn'tmatter if they're reading that
next week, or in two years, thetruth and the helpfulness of
that can remain stable and youdon't want to confuse them by

(15:22):
using words that say somethingabout this year or next year or
that distracts them from theimportant part of what you're
saying to them.

Carl Richards (15:46):
Next time you're writing, be mindful of word
choices that contain referencesto time. Oh, and speaking of
time, yesterday, I bought sixwatches, you could say I have a
lot of time on my hands. How doyou use DATE in your writing?
Share your examples or questionswith us via Twitter at open

(16:07):
underscore strategy or emailHello at open strategy
partners.com. This was one ofthe editorial codes we use at
OSP. If you'd like to learn morein the meantime, come on over to
open strategy partners.com Havea look at our writer enablement
workshops case study offeringfor get in touch to talk about

(16:29):
your strategy or productcommunication needs. Thanks to
everyone who contributed to thispodcast, all the peas that OSP
thanks to our clients whobelieve in us. Shout out to
Patrick Gamal for our highenergy, maple syrup flavor theme
music and to Mike snow foradditional horn arrangements.

(16:50):
Thank you for listening andsubscribing. About our three
themes on the podcast, you'llhear different members of the
OSP team hosting episodes overtime, communicate all things
communication. We share how wetackle writing, editing, word
choices, formats, processes, andwar. Connect in depth

(17:12):
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(17:34):
also feel strongly aboutbuilding a mindful positive
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(17:55):
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OSP podcast.

Felicity Brand (18:39):
Give the exact date the sixth of September
1975. Okay, that was a terribleexample.
Why didn't I say 2019 ... 1970!

Jeffrey A. McGuire (18:58):
Here's a good example. It's late October
2021. And dates are in seasonright now. And I am really
enjoying them in every year. Ibuy several kilos over the
course of a couple of months.
But if I just said dates are inseason, somehow, or mentioned
that out of context thatwouldn't help anybody. I'm not

(19:22):
sure that's a great outtake