Monday, April 14, 2008

First Meeting of the re.web Editorial Board

Today, the WEB met for the first time. WEB = web editorial board and its members are Henry Broaddus, Susan Evans, Jack Martin, Joe McClain, and Brian Whitson.

The Web Redesign Advisory Committee supported the creation of this temporary editorial board to oversee the review and publication of content needed for our July 31 launch. During our first meeting, we talked about exciting and excruciating detail like the serial comma (red, white, and blue OR red, white and blue). Who knew?

We are lucky to have many faculty, staff and students who are already reading through sections of new copy for the new web site. For instance, Ginger Ambler is coordinating the review of the Campus Life copy by many in Student Affairs. Copy about Graduate Admission is being carefully reviewed by Faye Shealy and others. W&M professors, along with Sue Peterson and Steve Otto (A&S Dean's Office), will soon review copy for the Academics section. The WEB will authorize and make final decisions about the content the world will see on July 31.

Want to know a bit more about the new web copy? See our collective CopyWrite posts.

Want to know what we decided about the serial comma? Stay tuned.

posted by Susan Evans

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe the time discussing the serial comma would have been better spent adopting Strunk and White's The Elements of Style.

re.web said...

I own the 2005 edition! For those unfamiliar with it, The Elements of Style is a resource for American English writing. Read the Wikipedia entry.

Luckily, the discussion about serial commas was part of a broader conversation about writing style and also included the common practice of using modified AP style on the web.

Anonymous, it would be great to hear more from you on this. We'd welcome a guest blog entry from an experienced web writer. You can contact me at sevans@wm.edu.