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Is Writing for the Web Different Than Writing for Print?

Yes!

As you know, I have started my online quest to improve my writing skills.  In particular, I had first started my journey in the area of punctuation.

After just my second post, my good friend Wes Thorp asked if I was "barking up the wrong tree".  You see, Wes was concerned that I might fall into the trap of using effective print strategies, and bring them to my blog.

How wonderful it is to have good friends, like Wes Thorp, who challenge you, cheer you on, and continually show a genuine interest in your life.  Thanks Wes!

Therefore, to be clear, there are significant fundamental differences in best writing practices between print, and online.  These communication distinctions, just to keep it interesting, are also in a state of constant flux.

Here are two resources that I intend to rely on heavily to keep my writing style Internet friendly, yet increasingly more stylistically competent:

• The Purdue Online Writing Lab (referred by my neighbor Susan)
• Useit.com - (referred by Wes Thorp)

If you know of any great resources to help us all further our Internet communication competencies, please share them in the comments section of this post!

Thanks!

How to Properly use a Serial Comma in a Sentence

Now that I have made a style decision with regard to the capitalization of my blog posts, it is time to tackle my great nemesis, the comma.

I am certain it is no secret to regular readers of my blogs, that I have an unhealthy love affair with the comma.  I have been operating under the if you pause, stick in a comma method.  

"Not so fast", says Mignon Fogarty, author of Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.

Now, understanding the proper use of the comma is a much more lengthy topic than title capitalization.  Therefore, I am going to break my comma lessons up into several posts.

In the first post we are going to cover the serial comma.  The serial comma is the comma that comes before the final conjunction in a list.  For example:

Aardvark and Squiggly love chocolate, hiking, and fishing. 

The serial comma is placed right before the conjunction "and", whereas some would prefer to construct the sentence without the serial comma:

Aardvark and Squiggly love chocolate, hiking and fishing.

Grammar Girl instructs the use of the serial comma to prevent confusion.  For example:

To my parents, Sally Smith and God. 

or:

To my parents, Sally Smith, and God.

In the first example, you might think that the parents are Sally Smith and God, rather than:  my parents, Sally Smith, and God.

I can recall a number of times wondering whether to stick that last comma in my sentences.  I am happy to now have a policy to use it, and avoid confusion.

I am going to be doing some blogging for a large organization soon, and their style guide leaves the serial comma up to a case, by case decision.  For me, I like to keep it simple.  Therefore, the serial comma will become my steady friend.

In my next punctuation review, we will move to the adjective comma.  Are you excited?

Are you a regular user of the serial comma?

How to Properly Capitalize the Titles of Your Blog Posts

For quite some time, I have bemoaned the fact that my proper writing skills are quite lacking.

Therefore, I have decided to produce a series of regular posts on this topic.

However, I would greatly welcome your contributions, constructive criticism, and perhaps you might even become a fellow pilgrim on the path to more refined writing skills.

To complicate all of this a bit, it would seem that there are quite a number of various opinions (styles) on this subject.  Nonetheless, most of what we need to know is outside of the gray areas.

Here are the instructions for the proper capitalization of post titles, from five different styles, from Mignon Fogarty's Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing:

• Capitalize the First Letter of Prepositions Over Three Letters Long, and Every Noun, Verb, Pronoun, Adjective, Adverb, and Subordinating Conjunction. (recommended)
• Capitalize the First Letter of Every Word Except Internal Articles and Prepositions.
  
• Capitalize only the first letter of the first word.
  
• Capitalize The First Letter Of Every Word.
  
• CAPITALIZE EVERY LETTER.

From now on, I am going to use the first style in formatting the titles for my blog posts.

How about you?  Which style do you prefer?