Importing LiveJournal and Blog Formating.
August 22, 2008 – 12:16 amOver the next couple of weeks I will import selected LiveJournal entries, edit them for spelling or grammar errors, and standardize the formating. This means that now is a good time to decide on style guidelines. The web has changed the way we emphasize words, titles, and concepts. Some bloggers don’t emphasize anything, others hyperlink most of the key nouns in their post. I have a hard time deciding on bolding, italics, or both. So far I think bolding should only be used for the emphasis of proper nouns (like titles of works and names of people) and key concepts. Italics should be used for quotation, sarcasm, and questions. Or maybe questions should be bolded. What do you think? Or do you prefer this?
I assume you don’t bold punctuation. Hyperlinks are useful but should probably be used spareingly. Should I link to the wikipedia entry on every obscure topic? By the way, when (if ever) is it okay to use all caps? Ah, I should have paid attention during the MLA lessons. However, I doubt MLA applies to blog posts.
Let me know what your personal style guidelines are and what you prefer.
One Response to “Importing LiveJournal and Blog Formating.”
Bolding a name or a question immediately yanks my attention to it. So I’d bold key ideas you want to get across, comic or movie titles that you want to discuss in-depth, questions you want responses to… stuff like that. If I see a big block of text, I might not notice a question buried in there. And if I see a name of someone I’m interested in, like an artist or an actor, I won’t scroll past — I’ll read it!
I would use italics for emphasizing speech. But then I also use ALL CAPS for this. Both when I’m reeeeally excited about something. But I’ll only bold it when it’s the subject. :B
By Ponyboy on Aug 22, 2008