During last year’s web development class I was forced — forced, I say emphatically — to write a style guide for a website. I found it a painful process but something I would recommend for any webmaster responsible for herding content creators.
The process of writing the guide helped me to think through the rules for new content. Imagine that you have five different authors of content. Each of them will put in some sort of formatting for layout ( via HTML and CSS). That is where content creation bogs down. Someone must ensure that the content follows a set of formatting guidelines ( H2′s for headings and H3′s for subheadings ) so that the content has a consistent visual appearance.
The other part of the style guide — the part that related to word usage and punctuation — was useful for ending arguments. The AP Style Guide says that website is one word and not two. In my business, the vocabulary is constantly evolving so sometimes we have to make up the rules as we go along.
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