Justin’s Style Guide

This page is published mostly for my own benefit. But it can also give you insight into how I think.

Editorial Style

• Always talk to the reader in a “You” format. Like, “You will”, “You can”, and “If you want to know more…”
• Use lots of bulleted and numbered lists.
• Write all page and post titles in sentence case, like: “Oh the places you will go”.
• Write the digits for numbers when they’re over 100. So Eighty-two, ninety-nine, 100, 101. Except:
  • When the number begins a sentence.
  • If the numbers in a sentence are valued at 10 or more. Like, “She took 4 of the 24 ingredients in under two minutes.”

Accessibility style

• Always start Alt text with “Photo of” or “Chart showing” or some other description of what the thing is foremost. Like, “Photo of Justin Harter eating a banana.”
• Headings must always be in order without skipping. H1 can only be used once. So H1, H2, H2, H3, H2 is fine. H1, H3, H1 is not.
• Always start links with a verb and never “Click here”. So instead of “Click here to see the recipes,

Punctuation and grammar

• Always use a serial comma. Like, “She wore blue shoes, a red shirt, and a nice hat.”
• Just avoid semicolons altogether.
• Write time without periods after the units, like 10 AM or 3 PM.
• Em dashes shouldn’t have a space before or after them: “The park—which was really cool—is closed.”
• Put periods at the end of sentences in bullets when they’re complete thoughts. Keep the thoughts full or shallow in lists.

Zombie words

These are words that are now meaningless and should be avoided.