Web Writing Style Guide

Wow...what pressure!  After reading this style guide, I was reminded how many potential readers there are on the web.  It became apparent that I must always pay attention to what I'm saying, how I'm saying it, and to whom I'm saying it.  Before, I just thought of writing online for me and my family as I traveled.  Reading about the woman fired for blog comments put that into perspective.  Of course, I then thought of the past, present, and future professors who might potentially look at my online randomness.  My stomach then turned into knots thinking of the style and grammar mistakes I have and will make.  This has taken some of the fun out of online writing but on the same hand refreshed my memory of all the "blah, blah" I find on the web.  It will be my goal not to become one of these bloggers.  Let’s see if I can actually achieve that goal.

I was also shocked that there is etiquette for online writing.  Of course, I shouldn’t be shocked.  After all, there is proper etiquette for putting a new roll of toilet tissue on the roll.  One interesting topic was the choice of color and design for the webpage.  Colors are important to add a little something extra to the page but it never occurred to me to design my page to aid my topic.  For instance, I am enjoying Dickens thus far so black and red would not be appropriate color choices as those are most associated with anger.  I also took a look at the website Color Meanings by Culture.  I found it quite enlightening to the variations in color meaning.   

This guide was, for me, much like an MLA guideline.  It presented the proper use of hyperlinks, photos, and videos.  Speaking of hyperlinks, it’s amazing that there is a correct way to post them.  I had never really thought much about punctuation when it came to adding a hyperlink to a site.  The guide also reminded me of the gray area that is copyright.  As an educator, it’s often easy to use the “educational purpose” clause for material used in the classroom.  When posting something online for the world to see, it’s a different story all together.  The up side is that this blog is for a course so the “educational” part might potentially fly but it would be in my best interest to play it safe and give credit where credit is due.