Every paragraph ("graf" in the news business) should begin with the "p" tag, as shown at the beginning of this sentence, and end with the "/p" tag, as shown at the end of this sentence.
If you wish to emphasize a word or put the title of a work of art, publication, film, or television program in italics, which is Crosscut's style, use the "i" tag to begin the italics and the "/i" tag to end the italics. Like so: Gone With the Wind. Punctuation that is not part of the italicized phrase or word should go outside the italics — really, truly, for example.
Use a keyboard dash (OPTION-SHIFT hyphen) or the HTML "—". Leave a space on either side of a dash. Don't use two hyphens. So it should look like this — or look like this — but not like this --.
If you have a block of text such as an excerpt that you wish to offset, put "blockquote" at the beginning and "/blockquote" at the end of every paragraph you wish to offset, as in this example. Paragraph tags need not be used in blockquotes.
Crosscut encourages linking within article text to relevant background and source material. Know how to link is an important skill every Web writer should know. It involves placing tags on either side of the text to be linked, as in this example. Be sure to include "http://" in the URL, or the link won't work. Do not leave spaces on either side of hot text inside the tags. Put the spaces outside the tags. Avoid including punctuation such as commas and periods inside the tags.
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