Compose tips

• Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <ul> <ol> <li> <blockquote>

  This site allows HTML content. While learning all of HTML may feel intimidating, learning how to use a very small number of the most basic HTML "tags" is very easy. This table provides examples for each tag that is enabled on this site.

  For more information see W3C's HTML Specifications or use your favorite search engine to find other sites that explain HTML.

  Tag Description	You Type	You Get
  Anchors are used to make links to other pages.	<a href="http://harvardmagazine.com">Harvard Magazine</a>	Harvard Magazine
  Emphasized	<em>Emphasized</em>	Emphasized
  Strong	<strong>Strong</strong>	Strong
  Unordered list - use the <li> to begin each list item	<ul> <li>First item</li> <li>Second item</li> </ul>	First item Second item
  Ordered list - use the <li> to begin each list item	<ol> <li>First item</li> <li>Second item</li> </ol>	First item Second item
  Block quoted	<blockquote>Block quoted</blockquote>	Block quoted

  Most unusual characters can be directly entered without any problems.

  If you do encounter problems, try using HTML character entities. A common example looks like &amp; for an ampersand & character. For a full list of entities see HTML's entities page. Some of the available characters include:

  Character Description	You Type	You Get
  Ampersand	&	&
  Greater than	>	>
  Less than	&lt;	<
  Quotation mark	&quot;	"

• Lines and paragraphs are automatically recognized. The <br /> line break, <p> paragraph and </p> close paragraph tags are inserted automatically. If paragraphs are not recognized simply add a couple blank lines.
• Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.

• Smartypants Help

  SmartyPants will translate plain ASCII punctuation characters into “smart” typographic punctuation HTML entities. It performs the following transformations:

  • Straight quotes ( " and ' ) into “curly” quote HTML entities
  • Backticks-style quotes (``like this'') into “curly” quote HTML entities
  • Dashes (“--”) into em-dash entities
  • Three consecutive dots (“...”) into an ellipsis entity