 |
|
|
|
|
|
||
      |
|
||
 |
 |
|
|
|
|||
 |
| Web Style Guide |
| IRT Information |
Writing for the web | Writing style
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dos and Donts |
|
|
|
|||||
|
|||||
Do: Keep page text short, non-technical and accessible to everyone |
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Writing for the Web
Writing for the Web is different than writing for academic purposes or for peer-reviewed journal articles. There are no physical limits on the number of words you can put on a Web page, but the patience of Web readers is notoriously short.
Context is important. Long pages are more acceptable for explanations of projects or research. Your Home page should always be as short as possible. Layer your pages to lead readers from brief and general to detailed and specific.
Writing Style
Content appearing on the Stanford School of Medicine Web site should conform with the Associated Press Stylebook (ISBN 0738207403; available from the Stanford Bookstore and from Amazon.com), except in the following instances:
A, an – in general, omit them in explanatory phrases about faculty members (John Doe, professor of medicine, not John Doe, a professor of medicine; Sara Smart, assistant professor of neurology, not Sara Smart, an assistant professor of neurology).
Academic/medical degrees – do not use the title “Dr.” before a name. Instead, list the medical and/or academic degrees – without periods – after the name (Jane Doe, MD, PhD, associate professor of urology). Separate degrees with a comma rather than a slash unless referring to students who are in a concurrent MD/PhD program.
Abbreviations and acronyms – should be used sparingly. In general, avoid acronyms that the average reader would not quickly recognize. Do not follow an organization’s full name with an abbreviation or acronym in parentheses or set off by dashes. Consult the AP Stylebook for additional guidance.
Capitalization – avoid or eliminate unnecessary capitals, reserving them for proper names and the first letter of the first word of a sentence or headline. For instance: use it when writing about a specific department or program (the Department of Medicine, the Program for Molecular and Genetic Medicine). When the full name of the department/program isn’t used, no capitalization is needed (the department, the program).
Commas – should be used sparingly to conform with current usage patterns. Consult the punctuation guide in the AP Stylebook for help in determining when to use commas.
Department names – only use the full name of the department when relevant to the subject matter (such as a story about the Department of Neurology). In providing information about faculty member affiliations, keep the description short (professor of biochemistry). In more complex departments with multiple divisions, use the following style: Jane Johnson, professor of medicine (infectious diseases).
Division names – same as “Department names” entry.
Health care – two words; hyphenate when used as a modifier (health-care industry).
Hyphens – follow AP Stylebook. Where meaning is clear and readability is not aided, it is not necessary to use a hyphen to form a compound. Restraint should be exercised in forming unnecessary combinations of words used in normal sequence (child welfare plan, flood control study, land use program).
Point of view – use a second-person approach (“We owe our reputation to the strength of our faculty …”) as opposed to a third-person approach (“The school’s reputation is built on the strength of its faculty …”)
Stanford University School of Medicine – on second and subsequent references, use “medical school” or “the school.”
