Amaranth Language and Style Guide
This guide keeps Amaranth’s public language consistent across pages, guides, project descriptions, and equipment documentation.
Brand Position
Use this as the default description:
Amaranth is UNM’s Digital Humanities and Public Scholarship Studio.
The short version is:
Amaranth is UNM’s digital humanities studio.
The site should present Amaranth as a collaborative studio: a place where people learn by making public, durable, thoughtful work with technology.
Core Message
Amaranth helps students, faculty, and community collaborators:
- Build public-facing humanities projects
- Learn through hands-on collaboration
- Use open, sustainable infrastructure
- Develop digital and AI fluency without giving up humanistic judgment
- Make work that reaches audiences beyond a class, conference, or private folder
Voice
The voice should be:
- Inspirational and approachable
- Clear before clever
- Encouraging without overpromising
- Practical enough for beginners
- Intellectually alive without sounding grandiose
- Honest about limits, uncertainty, and learning curves
Good Amaranth language often sounds like a workshop conversation: curious, concrete, and collaborative.
Preferred Language
Use these phrases and ideas often:
- “work with”
- “learn by doing”
- “build with support”
- “collaborative studio”
- “studio hours”
- “public scholarship”
- “open infrastructure”
- “owned by creators”
- “durable”
- “sustainable”
- “humanistic judgment”
- “editorial authority”
- “technology should serve questions”
- “making is thinking”
- “tools should serve the work”
Use Carefully
These phrases are useful, but can accidentally make Amaranth sound like a service desk or a magic solution:
- “easy”
- “simple”
- “no technical background required”
- “AI handles the technical work”
- “zero upkeep”
- “we handle it”
- “the platform handles the rest”
- “production partner”
When using them, pair them with language about learning, ownership, judgment, or collaboration.
Instead of:
We handle the technical work for you.
Prefer:
We work with you to make the technical work understandable, sustainable, and connected to your goals.
Avoid
Avoid language that makes Amaranth sound like a drop-off service:
- “send us your project”
- “we’ll build it for you”
- “full-service production”
- “service desk”
- “turnkey solution”
Also avoid hype around AI or technology. Amaranth should sound curious and critical, not promotional.
AI Language
The core AI message is:
AI can lower technical barriers, but humanistic judgment remains central.
When writing about AI:
- Emphasize critical practice, not novelty
- Say that AI can help with technical translation, drafting, pattern finding, and workflow support
- Keep humans in the role of editor, interpreter, critic, and decision-maker
- Acknowledge fabrication, bias, flattening, and verification
- Avoid implying that AI makes difficult work effortless
Useful phrasing:
- “AI-assisted workflows that put scholars in the editorial seat”
- “AI as a collaborator rather than an oracle”
- “clear eyes about what these tools do and don’t do”
- “technical work as a lower-stakes entry point into AI fluency”
Equipment Pages
Equipment pages can be practical, but they should still connect the tool to humanities work.
Each equipment page should include:
- What the tool is
- What kinds of humanities projects it can support
- How to get started in the studio
- A practical guide or next step
Avoid making equipment pages read only like inventory. The equipment is not the point; the work it enables is.
Page Type Guidance
Homepage and Studio Pages
Use the clearest articulation of Amaranth’s mission. These pages establish the brand for everything else.
Project Pages
Frame projects as investigations. Explain what Amaranth is learning, what worked, what did not, and why it matters for humanities teaching, research, or public scholarship.
Craft Guides
Make them practical but reflective. Connect steps and tools to communication, audience, ethics, design, or interpretation.
Website Pages
Emphasize ownership, open infrastructure, sustainability, and confidence-building. Xanthan should sound like a framework that helps people learn and publish, not a black box that does the work for them.
Collaborate Page
Invite early, unfinished ideas. Make it clear that Amaranth works alongside people rather than taking projects away from them.
Terms and Capitalization
- Use “Amaranth” after the first mention when possible.
- Use “the studio” for casual repeated references.
- Use “Digital Humanities and Public Scholarship Studio” as the formal title.
- Use “digital humanities” lowercase unless part of a formal title.
- Use “AI” rather than “A.I.”
- Use “open source” as a noun and “open-source” as a modifier.
- Use “GitHub” and “WordPress.”
- Avoid “Lab” unless referring to a proper name outside Amaranth.
Calls to Action
Good calls to action should feel inviting and low-pressure:
- “Drop by studio hours”
- “Bring a question”
- “Book a consultation”
- “Come talk through an idea”
- “Start with a rough version”
- “Explore the guide”
Avoid calls to action that imply the user must arrive with a polished plan.