Thursday, January 05, 2017

Writing Style Tip - Web Addresses and Periods

When I write email or website addresses in letters that will be printed, I either deliberately do not put a period after them, even if the address is at the end of a sentence, or I put the address in the middle of a sentence with other words after the address so that the address is followed by a space.

For example, instead of writing:

Please contact me by telephone at 613-555-1111 or by email at hosehead@scammer.com.

I would write:

Please contact me by email at hosehead@scammer.com or by telephone at 613-555-1111.

Many people do not know that an email address or web URL never ends with a period.

I also remove the automatic underlining that Word added to the email address and change the font colour back to black. Since this is going to be printed on paper, the address can’t be clicked on, so there is no need to make it less readable. 

Of course, it would be even better if I wrote:

Please email me at hosehead@scammer.com or phone me at 613-555-1111.

But that’s a whole different style issue that all the experts cover.

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