I'm creating this style guide to help Zen Habits guest writers -- actually to save me time in editing, because there are certain style changes that I have to do repeatedly 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'll understand!

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 MS Word, 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 the Wordpress editor and find <p> 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 HTML editor.

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 reader should 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 long as 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:

<h6><strong>Editor's note</strong>: This is a guest post from Joe Blow of <a href="http://joeblow.com">Joe's Guide to Blow</a>.</h6>

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

<strong>Read more from Joe at his blog, <a href="http://joeblow.com">Joe's Guide to Blow</a>, or <a href="http://joeblow.com/feed/">subscribe to his feed</a>.</strong>

Instead of your RSS feed link, you could put a link to your ebook or whatever you'd like to promote. Keep promotion 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 follow the latter.

Elipses. Space before and after, and three successive periods: "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 least my lists will be consistent. Here's the format:

<ul>

<li><strong>Work smart<strong>. Not harder.</li>

<li><strong>Be smart<strong>. You dummy.</li>

<li><strong>Live smart<strong>. Not sure what this means.</li>

</ul>

Of course, you could us <ol> for a numbered list. Note that the <strong> 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 <ul> or <ol> tag, and have  which I do often (note that the numbers are inside of the <strong> tag):

---

<strong>1. Work smart<strong>. Not harder.</li>

This is what my grandpappy taught me.

<strong>2. Be smart<strong>. You dummy.

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

<strong>3. Live smart<strong>. Not sure what this means.</li>

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 <em> 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 a bunch of acronyms. If you use an acronym, spell it out on first reference: "I'm not sure where I stand on the tactics of People 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 italics puts a strain on the reader.

Tabs and spaces and tables.

Images.

Categories and tags.

Excessive plugging and advertising.

Linking to your own posts.

Affiliate links.

Sponsored posts.