What should a front end developer expect from a copywriter?

Question

I'm working on a site and the client has hired a copy writer to supply the text... which has been an absolute nightmare. I'm wondering, what is an acceptable level of service one could expect from a copy writer who has been asked to write copy specifically for the web.

Is it unreasonable to expect them to have some basic markup skills, such as being able to encode html entities, create paragraphs and links and so on?

Does anyone here have any sort of checklist they use when saying what they will and will not accept as copy for a website?

Answer 1

No ... I would expect nothing more than a Word document. If you get more than that, you are lucky.

Answer 2

I wouldn't expect them to know markup. Their job is to write, not to write HTML - that's your job ;) I interact with about 5 authors regularly, and I only ever see a .doc file, which I convert to HTML, and then hand-clean to perfection before translating it into Markdown syntax...it's a labor of love.

Answer 3

No, I would not expect a copywriter to supply ready-made html that you can just pick up and drop in (as others have pointed out, that's your role as the web developer).

However, I would hope that the copywriter was "web aware":

• That they were writing the text with a copy of the site design in front of them, knowing where the particular piece of text was going to sit - so they don't deliver a 70 or 80 words for a box that can really only hold 50.

• That they are writing with SEO in mind (anyone who claims to be a web copywriter should) - that they understand things like keyword density etc.

• They should be able to clearing indicate what should be "marked up" with the copy - hyperlinks, bold, italics etc.

• I prefer to receive my copy as plain-text rather than any rich-text (word documents etc.) Although you can't expect markup, getting a .txt file is almost as good for being able to copy & paste it into html. It stops things like word-style quotes from being included in the html and makes working cross-platform a lot easier.