the zen habits style guide

7/30/2019 The Zen Habits Style Guide

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the zen habits style guide

by Leo Babauta

I created this style guide a little while back to guide writers

submitting guest posts to Zen Habits, and share it now in

hopes that it will help other bloggers. Please note that I amnot accepting guest post pitches or submissions.

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I'm creating this style guide to help Zen Habits guestwriters -- actually to save me time in editing, because

there are certain style changes that I have to dorepeatedly and I'd rather avoid that if possible.

If your guest post doesn't conform to this style guide, I

may refer you to this guide and ask you to revise. It's

possible that I might not publish your guest post if you

can't get it to conform to this guide. I hope you'llunderstand!

HTML Code. Too often I need to clean up the html of

guest writers who write a post in MS Word and then copy

and paste it into Wordpress. MS Word creates horrible

html -- it creates custom formatting for each paragraph,

which means I need to go in and strip the formatting out of

each paragraph. Very time consuming. If you write in MSWord, don't put any formatting or links into the post, and

just copy the text into the HTML tab in the Wordpress post

editor. If you don't know how to do this, then I suggest

writing the post in a plain text editor that doesn't have

formatting, or writing it within Wordpress itself. You know

you've done it incorrectly if you look at the HTML tab in theWordpress editor and find


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tags before and after each paragraph, usually with some

kind of font indicated within the tag. You've done it right if

paragraphs show up just as plain text within the HTMLeditor.

Introduction. Some guest writers just launch into a list of

tips. I prefer a post have an introduction of perhaps 4--7

paragraphs, because the reader needs to be sold on why

he needs to read the tips. Why should he care about your

tips on cutting back on Internet reading? The first couple

paragraphs should grab the reader, and the introduction in

general should explain the problem and why the readershould be interested.

Length. I don't have a guideline for number of words, but

use my posts on ZH to guide you. Too short, and you

might not be very useful (although there are exceptions).

Too long and no one will read you. Make the post as longas the topic needs, no more or less.

Credits. Each post must begin and end with credits, and

I'm particular about how this is done. Here's the first credit,at the very beginning of the post:

Editor's note: This is a guestpost from Joe Blowof Joe's Guide toBlow.

You should change it to reflect your name, url and blogtitle, of course. The final credit comes at the end of thepost:

Read more from Joe at his blog, Joe'sGuide to Blow, or subscribe to his

feed.

Instead of your RSS feed link, you could put a link to your

ebook or whatever you'd like to promote. Keep promotion


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to this paragraph, and don't overdo it or I'll cut it down.

Single space after periods. Academic papers require

two spaces after periods (or other sentence-ending

punctuation). Journalism style requires only one. I followthe latter.

Elipses. Space before and after, and three successiveperiods: "I think I'll wait ... for a second only."

Spelling. Please spell-check and read over your text,

even if I don't follow this advice myself. Wordpress has a

spell-checker and will underline misspelled words.

Lists. I'm particular about list formatting, only because I

like consistency. If I can't have it in my opinions, at leastmy lists will be consistent. Here's the format:

Work smart. Not harder.Be smart. You dummy.Live smart. Not sure what this

means.

Of course, you could use for a numbered list. Note

that the tag encloses the title of each list item,

but not the period. Then there's a single space after the

period, and the rest of the list item. There's a period at the

end of the list item. You could also do it without the or

tag, and have which I do often (note that the numbersare inside of the tag):

1. Work smart. Not harder.

This is what my grandpappy taught me.

2. Be smart. You dummy.

Not that you're a dummy, of course, but your mamma

is.


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3. Live smart. Not sure what thismeans.

But it's good to have at least three list items,because what's a two-item

list anyway?

ALL CAPS. Don't do it. Using all capital letters to

emphasize words or phrases is, in effect, screaming at the

reader. I prefer not to have posts on ZH scream at the

reader -- it's not the tone I'm trying to establish. If you

must, use italics to emphasize (the tag) ... but don't

do it too much (see next item). All caps should be used for

acronyms only ... and acronyms should be avoided as

much as possible, as no one likes to read a post with abunch of acronyms. If you use an acronym, spell it out on

first reference: "I'm not sure where I stand on the tactics ofPeople for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)."

Excessive bolds and italics. Don't do it. I prefer to use

bold to highlight the "subheadings" for sections within a

post, or to highlight the first part of a list item (see Lists,

above). I've used italics, but sparingly. Emphasis is best

done by choice of words and sentence structure and

length, not by formatting. Excessive use of bold or italicsputs a strain on the reader.

Exclamation marks. Use them very, very sparingly. They

should only be used to express extreme joy, excitement,

anger, or the like. Not as part of regular speech. And

never never use multiple exclamation marks. Or questionmarks combined with exclamation marks.

Footnotes. Don't do them. They are a distracting break in

the flow of reading. Instead, logically organize yourthoughts within the text itself.

Tabs and spaces and tables. Don't use tabs in your text.

Don't use a bunch of spaces to line text up exactly how


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you'd like. I generally avoid using html tables as well. Justwrite plain text and lists and avoid excessive formatting.

Images. I generally will choose the image to go with the

post, but if you'd like to suggest one, that's useful. I use

Flickr creative commons photos or ones I find on

istockphoto.com, so you could just include a note with the

url of an image you find in either of these. Generally I

prefer vertical photos because of the format of my blog,

but I violate that all the time if the best photo is horizontal.

Go for close-up images with a person in it, cropped fairly

close (they shouldn't be a small part of the photo, in thedistance), preferably showing their face. High-quality

images that look professional are a must. The personmust be interesting somehow, visually.

Categories and tags. Choose one category in

Wordpress, not three or five. No tags please, as I don'tuse them on ZH.

Excessive plugging and advertising. Posts are not

published on ZH to promote you, your blog, your ebook, or

your product. They're published to help readers. You may

plug your blog or ebook or other product in the credit at

the end of the post (see Credits, above), but not within the

post. A post with excessive plugging or that reads like anad for something will not be published.

Linking to your own posts. Acceptable once or twice

within the post, only if it's useful to the reader, but

generally to be avoided. The test is: is this link to help the

reader or to promote my blog/work? Too many links andthe post won't be published.

Affiliate links. Please don't include them. I might turn

Amazon links into my own Amazon affiliate links, butotherwise don't want any affiliate links.


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Sponsored posts. I don't allow anyone to pay me for

posts or to sponsor posts. I don't allow advertisers to post

or influence my posts. If you do any of this on ZH, you'll be

blacklisted by me and I will send venomous vibes yourway. If I catch it before it's published, the post won't be

published. Readers need to trust that posts are genuine,and aren't just ads.

Most important. Be extremely useful, and solve one of

the reader's problems. This isn't a style point, but I had to

include it because if you don't do this, you won't be

published on ZH.

Note: I reserve the right to add to, subtract from, or

otherwise revise this style guide at my slightest whim. I'mlike that sometimes.

Also: I reserve the right to have typos and grammatical

mistakes in this guide, if only to allow people to howl at the

irony. Also because I'm not perfect.

the zen habits style guide

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