Editor note: this list is under continuous development.
This is a personal collection of styles related to how I compose tweets for Twitter. Think of this style guide in the same manner as the Associated Press Stylebook.
Abbreviations will be used as appropriate for readability purposes, e.g., Mr., Mrs., Dr., etc. Avoid the use of abbreviations that take away from the readibility of the tweet, e.g., yr. instead of year. In cases where truncated words may be used, e.g., info, et al., those will be determined based on style and available character space. Non-standard abbreviations, e.g., "p" as in "pretty", "rn" as in "right now", "tbh" as in "to be honest", et al. should be used sparingly and with discretion.
Acronyms will be utilized to maximize readability, available character space, and tagging. Where appropriate, acronyms will continue to be utilized as the first preference, e.g., UX, UI, JS, etc. Tweet-specific acronyms such as RT (retweet), h/t (hat tip), et al. will also be used.
Limit the number of hashtags (#) to no more than five per tweet. Hashtags are meant to include tags that are relevant to the tweet's subject matter and will be used with discretion and included in the tweet text when applicable. Example:
If hashtags can't be included within the text of the tweet they will be added after. Example:
Appropriate spacing will be given in all tweets. Spacing will not be ignored for the purposes of saving character space.
Line breaks will be used with discretion. These should be utilized for readability purposes. Example:
Curved single and double quotes (smart quotes) will be used except in instances where straight quotes are required:
Code such as HTML markup, CSS, and JavaScript snippets can be included in a tweet but should be used sparingly and only to communicate relavent information. Code will be encapsulated in backticks (`). Example:
Markup can be included without backticks. Example:
Consider using a combination of backticks with markup: `<div class="modal">`.
Retweets are tweets from other and follows that individual's personal style.
The first priority of quoted retweets is to not edit the original tweet. However, hashtags can be inserted into the original tweet, if appropriate. All quoted retweets will include RT prior to the first quotation mark of the original tweet. Example:
All sentences will contain proper punctuation except numbered lines. Numbered lines will be given a space above and below the sentence. Numbers will be listed as: 1., 2., 3., etc. See example under the Line Breaks section.
- Colon (:): Words following colons will be in lowercase unless otherwise indicated, e.g., title.
- Elipsis (...): An elipsis will be used as appropriate. Using the elipsis character instead of three (3) periods in a row is more efficient because it will save two characters overall in the tweet.
- ?! (and multiple: ?!?!): When the question mark and exclamation point are combined the question mark will always come first.
Twitter's primary special characters are the commercial at (@) and hashtag (#) symbols. Both will be treated as appropriate except in instances where they don't represent Twitter's expectations of the symbols.
In instances where the commercial at (@) is being used for purposes other than to reference a Twitter name (e.g., in CSS @supports, etc.) a zero-width space witll be used after the commerical at to prevent Twitter from treating it as a user account (i.e., @supports instead of @supports).
In instances where the hashtag is being used for purposes other than to tag a word in a tweet (e.g., #1 team, etc.) the number abbreviation (No.) will be used.
Emoji is now fully supported by Twitter. The graphical version of emoji will be used first, if available, to save available character space. Example:
- ❤️ instead of <3
- 😦 instead of :-/
- 😕 instead of O_o
If the graphical version of emoji doesn't exist the text version will be used instead. Example:
- (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
- ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ
- ¯\_(ツ)_/¯