Links the new Quotes?
I remember vividly an 8th grad English class taught by Mrs. Raymond and Blach Intermediate School. She was instructing us on how to use quotes in a persuasive essay. Now I’m a bit of a style geek so I actually found this talk quite interesting. The basic idea here is she wanted us to use quotes as if we were speaking, rather than proving something we’ve said. So quotes would continue the flow of the essay and not be an break in voice or style. This same phenomenon is going on currently with links.
While you do see the obligatory link (www.link.com) and you often see links, here. But increasingly you see that people are simply listing the link within context. I’m sure this is due to the increasing Tech Savvy of your everyday person — but it brings up a very interesting idea to me. Clearly there are clear style rules for coding (w3c jumps to mind), but will we standardize writing style online?