The Yahoo! Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing, and Creating Content for the Digital World [Paperback]

There's a lot of information packed into The Yahoo! Style Guide a new book from Yahoo!. While other style guides and manuals have kept the topics of writing, user-interface, webpage coding, and SEO separate-The Yahoo! Style Guide brings it all together-making it a one-stop-guide for every member of your digital team.

One of the most useful chapters in the book is on copywriting for search engine optimization (SEO), and includes tips about keywords, links, page titles and metatags. People and search engines don't scan pages in the exact same way but there are some similarities to keep in mind, e.g. both need to know: what a page is about, what's important, options for acquiring more information.

There are excellent suggestions too, about how to "write for the world." We're reminded that the Web is a worldwide medium and "site visitors probably come from more than one country and more than one culture. Collectively, they probably speak several languages. It's a good practice to make the text on your site clear to as many people as possible." Five best practices we're urged to put into practice are: 1) Keep the sentence structure simple, 2) Include "signposts": words that help readers see how the parts of a sentence relate, 3) Eliminate ambiguity, 4) Avoid uncommon words and nonliteral usages, and 5) Rewrite text that doesn't translate literally.

You can read through the style guide from beginning to end and use it as a reference when stumped with a punctuation question, wondering how to write a perfect title for your email newsletter or streamlined text for mobile devices. The book is filled with loads of great tips. One of my favorites is on editing with screen-reading software so you can hear the page read aloud to you. (In Windows, Narrator or Ease of Use in Windows Vista and on the Mac, Text-to-Speech.)

The Yahoo! Style Guide is also available online with a companion website and includes additional resources and updates. You'll find a good companion in The Yahoo! Style Guide.

It has been a while since I actually read a style usage book. As a writer, I read and write constantly, so every book, article, website, brochure, email, and even utility bills I peruse are style manuals of sorts. I always notice what words and style conventions are used in texts I read.

But with the instantaneous pace of writing and publishing these days, there's much inconsistency when it comes to grammar and punctuation rules, word usage and style, readability standards, and just plane old clear concise writing. There's not a day go by that I don't read articles, including my own, that are in need of a copy editor to check for grammar errors and wordiness. Most bloggers and web content writers must write, edit, and proofread their work like lonely housewives in need of help with daily chores. It's nearly impossible to do it all effectively.

This is where The Yahoo! Style Guide can be useful. It's one of the only sourcebooks I know that is written--as it subtitle says--"for writing, editing, and creating content for the digital world." When I purchased the book, I thought I'd simply park it on a bookshelf near my work area, but as started scanning through it, I realized it would be useful for me as a writer to read it cover-to-cover. And quite surprisingly, it is actually a sourcebook that you can read in its entirety. Sure, there were some sections that I scanned because I was thoroughly familiar with the content, but for the most part, the book was not only a good refresher course, but it made me aware of some issues of usage and style that I need to keep an eye on when I write.

I particularly bookmarked a useful '"superfluous phrases" list, marking some of the extraneous and redundant words that sometimes crop up in my own writing. I also like authors' suggestion for keeping a style word list, for keeping track of how you will use certain words (e.g., p.m. or pm, African-American or African American, screenshot, not screen shot.) The book ends with 40 pages of [...]own word list, which you will find quite consistent with word style usage across the net and in paper publications.

Another section I bookmarked is about using "consistent terminology for your calls to action" (e.g. edit, change, uncheck, deselect, IM, type or enter.) And every writer who post his/her work on the World Wide Web should read the chapter, "Be Inclusive, Write for the World." The authors of this Guide make good points about how people from different parts of world read words in English differently. They advise, "do not assume that you know who's reading your website." They give tips on writing for an audience that is not homogenous. For example, they talk about using "signposts" that help readers see how the parts of a sentence relate. They talk about producing gender-neutral copy, and avoiding slang and idioms that might be unfamiliar to many readers.

Easy to read examples are included on nearly ever page of the Guide, and some chapters conclude with exercises that reinforce the previously covered material.

I know there are other style books (such as the AP Stylebook and the Chicago Stylebook) have been around for quite some time, but this sourcebook should be the definitive guide for writing in general and web content writing in particular.

If you are thinking of working online--buy this book! It's current (unlike many other web-related books) and full of everything you need to know or learn! I am thrilled to have it and grateful to Yahoo for its existence. BTW--IMHO, this is NOT a book to read on your Kindle.
H.E.A.V.E.N.

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