Weekly Standard

The Weekly Standard

Length of text: The length of text of each entry varies greatly depending on the contributor and subject. Sometimes the entry is brief, just a sentence or two. At other times, the entry can go on for 8-10 paragraphs.

Scanability: The site is somewhat scannable, with some instances of bolding key points and the underlining that comes from linking attributed paraphrased sentences or key words to their sources.

Chunking: The style of the blog changes by post and subject. The majority of chunking occurs when the entry contains quoted material from other sources, offset from the main text by vertical lines.

Headlines: The headlines are brief but descriptive, not too amusing or clever but informative enough to give the reader an idea of what the entry is about.

Copy editing: The site appears to be professionally edited and does not suffer from poor sentence structure or grammar.

Use of inverted pyramid: The entries on this site generally do not use an inverted pyramid. Either the entry is too brief or contains several paragraphs of quoted material.

Page titles: There aren't any specific page titles on the blog. Instead, the page displays posts for several days with a link at the bottom that takes the reader to the previous posts. The days and dates are labeled with that day's entries below it. It's a bit confusing because when you want to know when an entry was made you have to scroll up until you find the date.

Legibility: With an almost black sans-serif font and white background, the site is easy enough to read. The font size could probably be bumped up by a point or two, though I prefer the smaller size.

The most recent entry on The Weekly Standard is "When Al Qaeda Doesn’t Strike." The entry discusses the use of enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs) on Al Qaeda terrorists. The EITs, including waterboarding, are attributed to the successful extraction of information from a key Al Qaeda operative from the Arabina peninsula that likely prevented several attacks on American targets.