How much HTML does a writer need to know? I’ve always associated knowing at least a little bit of markup language with writing professionally, oddly enough. I know that isn’t the normal way of thinking about the topic, but it grew out of an internship at a daily paper.
The paper in question used what might now be described as the bastard child of a content management system and a page layout software. Using it required the use of obscene langauge as a pressure valve. Journalists wrote with a page of codes to make sure that their articles at least vauguely appeared as they hoped. The best writers knew those codes by heart and typed them along with the rest of a story.
Many writers working online these days work in a rich text environment. WordPress, Blogger and even custom content management systems typically have little buttons similar to those in Microsoft Word that allow you to bold a word, add a link or even toss in a picture. Most writers don’t really need to know too much in the way of HTML or other languages affect online formatting.
Just the same, I think that my ability to add basic HTML tags to my writing makes my work more valuable. At the very least, my work goes faster. I don’t have to take my fingers away from the home keys to make a particular word bold. And when I don’t have a CMS to type my work into, I’m ahead of the game. I can send a client a text file that just needs to be copied and pasted straight into a website’s underlying code — saving time and money for a client. A few extra key strokes have guaranteed me repeat clients.
What are your thoughts? Do you add in HTML tags? Or do you rely on the rich text buttons? Which one helps you to write online?
7 Responses
thursdayb (Thursday Bram)
February 9th, 2009 at 11:31 am
1Twitter Comment
Freelance writers: how important of a skill is HTML for you? [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Arachne Jericho
February 9th, 2009 at 11:40 am
2I add in my own tags and usually write straight in HTML. One of the most important reasons is that WYSIWYG editors on the web are usually not all that. (In fact, now that I scan my own blog archives, I see in H2 print, “Visual editors suck.”) They can get in the way of more complex formatting, or even only slightly more complex formatting.
Indeed, formatting and presentation is one of the most important parts of communicating online. If you don’t know how to set headings, or if you don’t know how to create links with fragments, even if you don’t know how to set the alignment of images or flow around them, your ability to communicate online is more limited, where formatting can actually affect how involved your readers are.
Plus a lot of embedded stuff requires HTML. The world of multimedia on the web and all that.
I think these days it’s extra important to get a good dose of CSS, because CSS is far more flexible than HTML and can be cleaner, too (and re-usable).
Still, for most things on the web, straight text is fine; but if you want to do more for whatever reason, you need more knowledge under your belt.
I actually wrote a very simple and tiny series (that I should expand but have not yet done so, and it’s been quite some time…) called HTML for Dummies. The first two and maybe the third contain things that are nice to know for writers; anything else I think isn’t necessary as far as nice basics are concerned.
Nicole Nascenzi
February 9th, 2009 at 11:47 am
3I try to know enough code to be dangerous mostly because I don’t trust programs and want to be able to enter my own code if necessary.
Incurable Disease of Writing
February 15th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
4Just Write Blog Carnival February 13, 2009 Edition…
Welcome to the February 13, 2009 edition of Just Write. It’s with pride and satisfaction I present this week’s carnival; being without power for two weeks didn’t stop the regulars and newcomers from submitting, and we have …
rani
February 18th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
5HTML and knowing something about it is interesting. I just started learning about it, but when I tried to fix something in blogger it did not change.
Thursday
February 19th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
6@Rani, It’s been my experience that the HTML editing options on Blogger are not very intuitive. However, there are some solid tutorials available to walk you through the process.
March 2009 Writing Success Blog Carnival | Writing Success
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:41 pm
7[...] Bram presents Writing Skills: Where does HTML fall? posted at Hyper Modern Writing, saying, “More and more freelance writers are getting ahead by [...]
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