The Yahoo! Style Guide Sorts Out The Wild, Wild Web
Yahoo has just released “The Yahoo! Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing, and Creating Content for the Digital World” in paperback, with copies also available for the Kindle and iPad. Yahoo Claims that the guide will also be released in e-pub and other open formats in the future.
The Yahoo! Style Guide packs guidelines on just about every aspect of writing for the web into 528 printed pages. The guide not only explains the basics of grammar, usage and punctuation but also delves deeply into techniques for writing to a web audience. According to the company: some chapters you’ll want to read word for word, while others are best for skimming.
Sections include writing for an online audience, speaking to your entire audience, writing UI, text and e-mail-friendly content, managing mechanics, cleaning up your copy and additional resources. The guide starts with pointers for writing web copy that is easy for users to read, including examples of re-writing content from hard copy to web-friendly. It encourages authors to identify their audience, find their voice and write clear, compelling copy.
Section II encourages authors to write for their entire audience. Not only does this account for those in other parts of the world but those with disabilities as well. Sections focus on writing gender-neutral copy, eliminating bias in your writing and writing for an international audience. In addition to clarifying several myths and correcting misnomers regarding copy, the guide also explains how to build websites that are accessible to audiences with disabilities. It includes an accessibility checklist and goes into detail explaining how people with disabilities use the web.
Section III details best practices for writing for different mediums, such as user-interface text, email and mobile phones. The user interface chapter sets out guidelines for creating page titles, buttons, alt text for images and more. The chapter concerning email explains how email can be used as an outreach tool, suggesting ways to build targeted email messages that attract visitors to your site. Next, the guide covers writing for the mobile phone, which includes information on optimizing copy for the small screen and creating audience-specific text messages.
The next section deals with the mechanics of copy: punctuation, grammar, numbers and usage. It makes a handy reference to come back to when there is a question regarding any element of style.
Section V ties it all together and gives tips for editing and proofreading. Chapters deal with cleaning up your copy, strengthening sentences, avoiding common mistakes, proofreading your own work and more.
The website, http://styleguide.yahoo.com, offers a variety of resources unavailable in the print edition. The guide is available for $14.95 from Amazon.com.
This could be very useful
This could be very useful read. The price is more than affordable. If I had the time to read it I would buy it certainly.
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