Punctuation’s what you need
Nov 22nd, 2007 by handolio
For all my protestations that there’s no great secret to writing for an online audience, after a few months in the job I’m beginning to notice a couple of more subtle differences in the way that it’s possible to use language when writing for the internet.
One area where this keeps coming up is with hyperlinks and punctuation, where anchoring a URL on text in your body copy can serve as a useful way to add emphasis. In some circumstances it sends the reader a signal about the sentence structure that would traditionally have required punctuation.
Take the following:
While a brass band reportedly played “Popeye the Sailor Man”, crew members’ families lining the docks waved flags depicting a smiling whale.
I’ve used quotes around the song title, though I could equally have put it in italics. But if I use it to anchor a link – to the Wikipedia entry on Popeye for example – is conventional punctuation necessary at all?
While a brass band reportedly played Popeye the Sailor Man, crew members’ families lining the docks waved flags depicting a smiling whale.
I’d argue that, provided the site’s style visibly marks anchor words for hyperlinks, a link like this serves the same purpose as quotation marks or italics. It’s also more useful to your readers if they don’t know who Popeye is.
But…
So far so obvious, I suppose, but could we fairly expect a hyperlink to do more? In the original article I included a link to the source for the sentence:
While a brass band reportedly played “Popeye the Sailor Man”, crew members’ families lining the docks waved flags depicting a smiling whale.
What if I had simply written
While a brass band played “Popeye the Sailor Man”, crew members’ families lining the docks waved flags depicting a smiling whale.
which serves the same purpose and probably reads better?
I’d say it’s great to have the option in an informal piece like this, but I wouldn’t rely on it for proper attribution in a formal news story. Of course, you also need to be careful if you know an article will end up in print, stripped of the links you were relying on to make it read properly.
Talking of which, there’s nothing like repeating the same quote four times to make you paranoid that it’s clunky.
“…crew members’ families who lined the docks…”?
Perhaps hardcore online journalists should demand that their work never ends up in print?
No self-respecting writer is going to demand that their work never ends up in print, surely?
It’s a brave new world…
Demand it be reproduced both in both and virtual form – I want the book AND the e-book, in the same way I want an album AND mp3, DVD AND digital copy, friends AND FaceBook friends.
We live in a world where the lines between real and virtual need neither be crossed nor blurred – information is nearing ubiquity, what people will/do want is access to ‘great stuff’ wherever they are, and no matter which platform, device or social situation they choose to interact with it via, they should be helped to this end.
If I like your online article I might choose to print or publish it – if you try to stop me, more (virtual) fool you!
Hear hear. I think I my initial comment may have been a bit too straight-faced for the intended sarcasm to come through – I just love the idea of journalists saying ‘no, don’t *print* my stuff, you’ll ruin it’.
If I was to have my commenting cherry over again on this one, I’d have added a nice smiley after it
Funny, I wouldn’t dream of using a smiley face when writing on paper, but I find them rather helpful during online conversation. Rather like hyperlinks, perhaps?