Editorial Style Guides vs. Editors Who Guide Style

I recently had a conversation with my colleague about editorial style guides versus content editors. I described to her my frustration with writing sharply definitive editorial standards. No matter how many ground rules you set for a content author, maybe some people are just born without the "writing for the Web" gene, you know?

Think about subject matter experts like engineers or researchers, who can compose highly technical, dense, jargon-laden content quite competently. Do you really think that giving them an editorial style guide for the Web will drastically improve their ability to write concisely, at the right reading level, with the right keywords, in plain language? Ha.

Hold that thought for a moment.

There are two trends you and I see with increasing frequency. The first is the decline of the newspaper.  This is not "new" news; the popularity of the paper and the size of the average newspaper staff have both been in decline for decades now.

The second trend, seemingly unrelated, is the need for better, stronger, more streamlined Web content. Organizations who once simply mirrored their brochure copy for their Web site now want fresh, keyword-rich content along with their shiny new site redesign. They look to their team of content authors to provide more than just well-written copy; they want writing that flows perfectly with the new look and feel of the site, despite the fact that their writers may have no idea what the new site will look like.

And then this afternoon, the clouds broke open and a light shineth upon me, as I stumbled onto one of the most forward-thinking articles at A List Apart about how writing for the Web actually gets produced, entitled The Cure for the Content-Delay Syndrome. Pepi Ronalds hits the nail right on the head as she describes the joys of using a professional editor throughout the Web design (or redesign) project, to do everything from determine the right overall voice and tone, to rewrite and repurpose existing content, to project manage the appropriate SEO and accessibility considerations.

A large site (or even a small one) with wordy, inconsistent, poorly composed, or just plain bad content could probably benefit from using an editorial style guide in the writing trenches.  But having a human editor, who can guide both the style and the people, as well as project manage, makes even better business sense.

Although editors who specialize in writing for the Web aren't terribly common, the skill set of a seasoned newspaper editor is almost exactly what the doctor ordered, especially for large-scale content rewrites. The ability to define and follow style guides and standards, merge design and copy seamlessly, streamline highly factual content without losing its value, and project manage all the way home: it seems, to me, to be a match made in heaven.

I like the newspaper, and it saddens me to see it (and the staff size) get smaller. Yet, I daydream of a world where smiling content authors and Web editors work together to create succinct, audience-appropriate, well-written Web copy on time and under budget. I'd be willing to sacrifice a section or two of the local paper for that.