Use <strong> rather than <b> when you want to bold something. It’s the accepted standard now.
Use <em> rather than <i> when you want to italicize something. It’s the accepted standard now.
Watch your use of spaces within HTML coding.
No: Eater <a href=”URL”>reports that </a>David Chang scratched his balls today.
Yes: Eater <a href=”URL”>reports that</a> David Chang sneezed today.
In the case above, the errant space will yield a sloppy-looking link, leaving a little bit of underlining between that and David:
Eater reports that David Chang sneezed today.
I often see this with <em> and <strong> coding, too. Admittedly, it’s less critical in those instances, but you might as well watch your HTML there, too, as laziness in one area begets laziness in others.
One of the first things you learn in Reporting 101 is that nine times out of ten, you can take the ax to very without changing your sentence one bit. It’s a so-called intensifier that gets in the way of strong, direct writing. Often used by lazy writers. What’s the difference between The cake was very good and The cake was good? Wasted keystrokes.
Most words beginning with the prefix un are closed up: unaffordable, uninspired, unapproved.
However: un-American, un-English, un-European. When used with a proper noun, they form hyphenated compounds. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/un-
In many instances you can remove that from a sentence without changing the meaning Ex.: He said that he wanted to go to Di Fara. She said that it was OK to eat the potato salad.
Most words beginning with the prefix pre are closed up: prebake, prewash, precut. Amazing, huh? Not really: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pre
Most non words are closed up: nonstop, nonrefundable. Your inclination may be to hyphenate these. Fight that inclination. Check this out: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/non
Just salty enough, just sweet enough, just chewy enough, just crisp enough.
Enough! We’re overusing this phrase. Please find a way around this locution. It’s fine every once in a while, but it begins to lose its meaning after several iterations.
Not housemade.