Historic Site Style Guide

As Lane suggested, it will be very useful for you to have a style guide to make sure we’re formatting our essays consistently. This is IN ADDITION to the general rubric.

Below I’ve tried to summarize what we’ve decided in class. If I’ve missed anything, please ask so I can add it.

Quick Facts

• We voted that a Quick Facts section is OPTIONAL.
• If you’d like to add one, Aaron (aka Fort Marcy) has an excellent example of how to do a handsome Quick Facts section that models the NPS travel itinerary pages

Headings

• The first thing on your page should be your site title in H1, like # title in Markdown.
• All subsequent headings should be in H2, like ## subheading
• If you want to use a sub sub heading, great! (### subsubheading)
• All headings should use TITLE CASE, like “Mary had a Little Lamb”

Image Captions

• Sorry this didn’t work as expected. Instead of the footnote code, just use a regular link like source at the end of your caption, where someurl will be the page where you got the image.
• You can also, instead of “source” as the linked text, use the name of the source like “Wikipedia” of “Library of Congress”

Horizontal Rules

• These should be kept to a minimum, within your essay but you can use them where you really want them
• BUT, do not use them around the heading or the top of the page
• DO put one at the very end of the body of your essay, and between all subsequent sections (directions for visiting, address, etc)

Related People, Places, Articles

• Headings should be in H5 (#####)
• Make sure your references are formatted as a list

Bibliography

• Your bibliography should be the last thing on the pages and have a horizontal rule right above it
• Use title (in H2) of “Bibliography” (not works cited, nor works consulted, nor anything else)
• Make sure your references are formatted as a list or are separate paragraphs and looks nice
• We decided on CHICAGO style
• Make sure the references are unambiguous and as precise as possible
• Minimize ugly URLS on the page; make sure they are hyperlinked

Unsure or confused?

• Look at other essays to get ideas of what other people are doing
• Decide how much you should do something similar or if you really need to do something else (and it’s OK if you do)
• Essays don’t have to match perfectly, but we should keep stylistic deviations to a minimum and for specific reasons other than laziness or ignorance.