A year ago, I wrote up a brief primer on HTML for some colleagues that was intended for writers and editors. By this I mean I tried to keep technical jargon to a minimum and focused on appealing to writers’ and editors’ love of semantics and grammar.

I was just forwarding it to someone who didn’t know any HTML, and I figured it makes sense to post it here for the benefit of anyone else who stumbles upon it.

Why You Should Care About HTML

For writers and editors, HTML probably seems at best like a minor nuisance. The fact that it was written by (and to some extent conceived of for) programmers is probably a big reason why.

In fact, HTML is pretty easy to learn conceptually. And these days, HTML has mostly been stripped of what once made it a “programming” or design language. Properly used, HTML has now become a way for content authors to define the meaning of various aspects of a web document. In fact, content authors and editors are really the only people who can properly mark up a document and ensure it’s being done correctly.

Here are just a few of the reasons why you should care (passionately) about HTML:

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