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Advice about web writing and editing

Styleguides, personal experiences, tips, and detailed how-to-do-it pages.

We've tried to pick only sites that take the point of view of the writer or editor. Often, the creators are themselves writers, consultants, editors, or a little of all three.  Always check the About section to see if you feel the makers have enough street cred for you.

Caution: A lot of the so-called web styleguides just describe how to handle interface elements.  Good, but irrelevant for writers and editors.  (We've included a few of the best of these over in the section on Information Architecture and Interface Design.)

Suggestions?  Comments? Let us know.

BBC News Styleguide

A good, clean, easy-to-follow set of guidelines for writers (mostly journalists). You can hear the debate behind the scenes, and the give and take, as editors try to rein in writers, and writers push for new ways of saying what they mean, even if that sometimes leads to, gasp, Americanisms.
http://www.bbctraining.com/onlineCourse.asp?tID=5487&cat=3

Brizcomm

Yvette Nielsen does consulting all around Australia and Asia, and she sees her site as a benchmark for online content. Get her free weekly newsletter, and browse the free tips on everything from accessibility to usability. (You have to sign up for the newsletter to get into the full archive of tips).
http://www.brizcomm.com.au/default.asp

Bullfighter

From Deloitte, the consulting and research folks, comes this little utility to spot bull. "BullfighterTM is software that runs in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, within Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP. It works a lot like the spelling and grammar checker in those applications, but focuses on jargon and readability." Catches you slumping into phrases like "A value-added, leverageable global knowledge repository." Fun, and well worth giving to your boss.
http://www.dc.com/insights/bullfighter/

Content Exchange

Good advice from 1999-2001, when a lot of people were waking up to the fact that, hey, we are creating content for online delivery, and what does that mean? The site is inactive, now, but the articles are still posted. Browse by topic or author. Classics to check out: articles by Crawford Kilian, Ethan Casey (columns about "the online editor"and the "online publisher"), and the articles on themes such as web writing and web content.

If you are a media historian, you may find the articles on money interesting, but today most of them seem out of date and irrelevant. Still, thanks to Amy Gahran and Steve Outing for keeping all of these pieces available. Good challenge for a doctoral dissertation: the entire archive, as a snapshot of a major forum for writers trying to figure out what they were doing online, back as the century turned.
http://www.content-exchange.com/cx/html/newsletter/bysubject.htm#o

Contententious

An occasional blog aimed at anyone who is creating content for online media, meaning, mostly, the Web, from Amy Gahran. Amy's lively, plugged-in, and fun. Following her, you'll get a sense of the latest controversies in the chaotic world of online content.

Bonus: From the blog, you can get the archives of the old site, Contentious, with tips and insider insights.
http://blog.contentious.com/

Cortexte

Francois Hubert conducts a thoughtful survey of advice on web writing, offers his own thoughts on the site, and provides summaries in his occasional email newsletter. He is becoming the lead theoretician of text on the Web. A Canadian, he writes in French, with special attention to handling Americanisms such as "internet," mistakes, and poor usage (with good before and after examples). His argument: "Les spécialistes de l'écriture Web doivent inspirer un retour à la lisibilité et à la qualité des textes dans Internet : caractères noirs sur fond blanc, intérêt et pertinence du contenu."
http://www.cortexte.com/

Editorial Eye

An excellent print newsletter, with some recent articles posted on the web, such as Mindy McAdams on editing links. If you edit, you should probably subscribe. This journal has been the leader in the field for years, and they keep finding relevant topics both online and off. For example, we recently did an article about writing for the tiny screens of cell phones and PDAs.
http://www.eeicommunications.com/eye/index.html

Edit-Work.com

 

Reasonable advice about editing and writing on the Web and a discussion list for Web editors. Nice site, but the creators have forgotten it since 2001, so topics and links are getting a bit dusty.
http://www.edit-work.com/

Elements of Style

Tough, tight, to the point. Here's how to write short, no matter what the medium. This is the original text by William Strunk, published in 1918, resuscitated by the Bartleby project at Columbia. Of course, you ought to go buy the later edition put out by E.B. White, but if you are too cheap to do that, or if you just want to see what Strunk was saying before the down-east New Yorker writer took over, take a look. Think of this book as a good workout for every muscle in your style.
http://sut1.sut.ac.th/strunk/

E-Write

Leslie O'Flahavan and Marilynne Rudick train staff on writing emails. Take the test called E-Mail Quotient. Read their comments on the before, and watch the transformation in the Message Makeover. Want to see some good examples? See the showcase of good writing on sites.
http://www.ewriteonline.com/

Good Documents

Dan Bricklin, veteran of the software wars, gives practical advice on business writing on the Web. He's the guy who invented the spreadsheet, and now he runs Trellix, a company selling software to create and manage websites. Good Documents is his attempt to help customers write well on the web. A veteran like Dave Winer and Tim Berners-Lee, Bricklin has seen a lot of clumsy, disorganized, and poorly thought-out sites. Here he does his best to clean house.
http://www.gooddocuments.com

Grammar Hall of Shame

A whole database full of egregious mistakes, outlandish puffery, and abusage. Tim Hicks also offers his own blog, daffynitions, puns, and out-takes from Henry Beard's classic, Latin for All Occasions, which helpfully translates "rara avis" as a lack of rental cars.
http://www.trh.bc.ca/grammar/grammar.php

Handbook of E-Zine Publishing

How to do market research, build quality, set up templates, develop content, and publish an e-zine. Good detail. And of course they have their own newsletters.
http://www.e-zinez.com/handbook/index.html

Introduction to Hypertext Style

Christopher Daly's advice on writing hypertext, from back in 1998. Key point: "Good writing comes from having something to say and saying it well." Although these guidelines focus on hypertext in general, the tips apply to web writing.
http://www.bu.edu/cdaly/hyper.html

JL Consulting

Jean-Luc Doumont teaches engineers how to write well, an astonishing feat. And he explains navigation in a way that even beginners can follow. These articles and speeches cover web design, web content, technical writing, and typography. In PDF you can get short Dutch, English, or French articles, each elegantly laid out. My favorite: "Is a picture worth a thousand words?"
http://www.jlconsulting.be/publications.html

NCSA

A review of the Web style guides that had been developed back when the Web was just discovering its own consciousness, circa 1996. Rupert Berk and Alaina Kanfer sum up what they saw out there, for the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Of historical interest only.
http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/edu/trg/styleguide/

Online Writing List

Sign up for this discussion, with daily digests. Follow trends, learn inside dope, and, maybe, answer some questions from other Web writers.
http://talk.poynter.org/online-writing/

Plain Language

The hub of the plain-language movement in the U.S A whole site devoted to making government employees write "user friendly documents.". Gee, back when I worked at Apple, all of us writers were working to create an approach we called "user-friendly." These days, the term sounds like something a bored stewardess might say, during the preflight sermon. But this site gives government workers the basics of writing simply, directly, and with a little visual panache. The advice is good, despite the source.
http://www.plainlanguage.gov/

Plain Language Online Training

Clear, simple tips on simplifying your language. Eight modules sum it all up.
http://www.web.net/~plain/PlainTrain/Digest.html

Politics and the English Language

George Orwell's 1946 essay still stings. If you didn't read this back in college, do so now. Oh, right, it has nothing to do with the web. Well, a little. Um, maybe it is still relevant. OK, part of the problem with a lot of writing on the web is that the writers are still caving into power, assembling stale images, stirring in pretentious diction, adding syllables, and achieving, at last, an absolute absence of meaning. The advice may seem simple, but following it requires a real change in your point of view. As Orwell says, "These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. " Thanks to the University of Michigan for making this essay available on the Web.
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Orwell/politics_and_english.html

Publishers Marketplace Association

If you're self publishing ebooks, or small print runs of a paper book, you may want to join this non-profit trade association.
http://www.pma-online.org/

Quality Web Content

Rachel McAlpine, a novelist, poet, and web writer, has run workshops on online writing since 1995. She wrote Web Word Wizardry for Ten Speed Press. Here, she posts clear, and commonsensical articles about web writing. Take the quick test to see if your site meets her standards of web quality.
http://www.webpagecontent.com/

Resources for Writers and Writing Instructors

Jack Lynch, over at Rutgers, has put together this fairly conservative list of advice, links to rhetorics, styleguides, . As he says, the page is terribly disorganized, but there is plenty of good stuff. He rules out many sites that smell commercial, which limits the usefulness of his list, but he breaks his rule fairly often, with sites that are partly educational, and partly a pitch for business.
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/links.html

Say What You Mean

What an odd idea! Ron Scheer tells you how. He gives you checklists, articles, and book reviews, to make sure you keep it simple, usable, and, oh yes, to the point. You could spend hours here, because he has posted so many interesting pieces, over the last four years.
http://www.ronscheer.com/

Science Sites Communications

Merry Bruns writes, edits, organizes content-and teaches classs to aspiring web writers. Check out the web editor's toolkit for web editing groups, help in finding a job, a booklist, and articles on a wide range of topics, from editing complexity for the web, to making money from online content. Attractive site, and friendly approach. Highly recommended.
http://www.sciencesitescom.com/index.html

Studio B

David Rogelberg's site has a great e-mail newsletter for professional writers, particularly those concentrating on high tech subjects such as computer publishing, training and document creation. David is an agent representing folks who write computer books. Bias: I worked with David back when he was our wonderful editor at Hayden, and I have met dozens of his authors at conferences, all enthusiastic. If you are looking for an agent, check out the rest of the site.
http://www.studiob.com/ab/lists.asp

Styleguide for Online Hypertext

From the man who invented the Web, Tim Berners-Lee. Written 1993-1998. Quirky, but pointed. More a collection of pet peeves than a thorough styleguide. Definitely worth a tour.

Shows that in the beginning, web writing was isolated from and ignorant of earlier forms of online writing (help, CD-ROM, tutorials), and totally detached from academic theorizing about hypertext.
http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/Overview.html

The Vocabula Review

If you like words, you'll bookmark this site, where their slogan is, "A society is generally as lax as its language." Musings on etymology, dictionaries, shibboleths, and the degradation of the language.
http://www.vocabula.com/

Web Content Design

Advice on writing style, within a site that discusses the design process, site and page organization, email newsletters, and content plans. Designed by Mazzie Ballheim as a supplement to a class called Web Content Design for Writers and Editors. Some tips on careers in content, too.
http://www.webcontentdesign.com/wcd/writing/Writing.asp

Web Economy Bullshit Generator

A JavaScript application that helps you make up bullshit, by choosing a verb from the first column, an adjective from the second, and a noun from the third. Or let the software do it for you, as you mesh dot-com synergies.
http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html

Web Editors List

To discuss Web editing with editors, copyeditors, proofreaders, and managers. Topics: procedures, style, usability, and content management.
http://www.topica.com/lists/webeditors

Web Grammar

Judy Vorfeld is Ms Web Grammar, and she makes usage questions sound more fun than Miss Metcalf did. You'll find links to dictionaries, glossaries, grammar tips, information on idioms. She gives you grammar basics and tips. Helpful, and inviting, if you need a quick answer, or a link to a deep resource.
http://www.webgrammar.com/index.html

Web Styleguide

Peter Lynch and Sarah Horton have posted the second edition of this book, and, sure enough, it reads like a book on screen. The advice is Old Blue-a bit arrogant, certainly old fashioned, and poorly written. Many managers like the book because it seems such a put-down of the most interesting aspects of the Web. I don't like it much. But if you want to see what the bitching and moaning is about, read what the authors have to say about text. Then ask yourself: are they even following their own advice?
http://www.webstyleguide.com/index.html?/

Web Wonk

David Siegel knows what's right, and he will tell you, straight out, because he knows best. Despite his claim that he is offering tips on writing, most of the time he is talking about laying out text on a page-how to handle fonts, background, images. But occasionally he gets riled up about prose, and rants about the English language in cyberspace, and spelling errors on the web. Alas, David has not bothered to come up with a new tip in 5 years, so you won't get cut by the new ideas. Enjoy for the attitude.
http://www.dsiegel.com/tips/index.html

What is good hypertext writing?

Jutta Degener's advice from way back in 1998. We like her pages because she was one of the first to point out the worst offenses of early hypertexters. For a refreshing splash of cold water, read her glossary of phrases to avoid (Dangerous Words).
http://www.kbs.cs.tu-berlin.de/%7Ejutta/ht/writing.html

Writergrrls

A group for women who are professional tech writers, novelists, fiction writers, journalists, and poets-both on staff and freelance.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/writergrrls/

Writers UA

A site devoted to user assistance, within software, and on the Web. Great resources. Run by an actual writer, Joe Welinske, the site acts as ground zero for conferences, workshops, and advice about help and web customer assistance, with salary surveys, articles, and product reviews..
http://www.winwriters.com

Writers Write

Home of the Internet Writing Journal, with interviews and advice on writing various genres, occasionally web writing.. Lots of advice for all kinds of writers, plus lists of paying markets. Brace yourself for all the ads, and in between them you can find useful information.
http://www.writerswrite.com/

Writing for the Web (Kilian)

Crawford Kilian's observations about the fast-changing genres of writing on the Web. He's experimenting with a half dozen blogs, only one of which concerns web writing, but you may want to check out his notes as he writes two novels, or struggles with local politics in Vancouver. Born a New Yorker, he moved via Berkeley to Canada, where he has taught at Capilano College since 1968. He takes sensible, conservative positions on most writing, reaches out to the whole world, and reveals himself more by the topics he chooses to cover than by self-exposure.
http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/

Writing for the Web (Nielsen)

By usability guru Jakob Nielsen with P. J. Schemenaur and Jonathan Fox at Sun. Sums up some of the research done in the late 90s at Sun, trying to show writers how to apply the results. How to write to be found, and read. Terms to avoid. How to edit a web page. These short takes on Nielsen's research give you good advice, in a terse styleguide, but lack the detailed statistics and data that you need when arguing with your team about titles, headings, introductions, or link text.
http://www.sun.com/980713/webwriting/

If you want to dig into that research, see Nielsen's own archive at http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting.

Writing Instructor

A networked journal for writers and teachers of writing. A bit academic, and old fashioned in some areas, but they do have a few good pieces on hypertext. The editorial board is good, the output somewhat limited. Many discussion lists do not really exist, and in many topic areas, the editors have not yet released their debut issues.
http://www.writinginstructor.com/areas/archival/index.html

Writing that Works

Host of the Awards for Publication Excellence, and publisher of a monthly paper journal about writing techniques, style, usage, and management, with special sections on online publishing, PR, and marketing. Even if you don't subscribe to the print version, you can tour the winners of their awards, and pick up some good tips in the free articles.
http://www.writingthatworks.com/index.php

 

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