Standards and Accessibility copy

Anyplace that would let me copy it?

[neophyte]

I've decided to put two pages on my site with text content explaining the importance (and business-oriented bottom-line benefits) of web standards and accessability.

When I'm in a discovery meeting with a new client, I always mention these issues - usually successfully, i.e. they understand what I'm talking about and the advantanges these issues COULD have regarding audience reach - but when I've tried to retrace my verbal steps on paper (ok, with Word) I get soooooo, well, wordy and repetitive and, well, turned-around.

There's alot of GREAT and convincing content on the web about standards and accessability that other people have already penned to perfection, but I don't want to rip-off/plagurize (sp?) their work for my benefit.

Does anyone know of some great standards/accessability content that is considered public domain (or already says "use this where ever you want") which I can just copy and paste within my site (with a link to the source, of course).

Neophyte

[createErrorMsg]

but when I've tried to retrace my verbal steps on paper (ok, with Word) I get soooooo, well, wordy and repetitive and, well, turned-around.

This is a pretty common writing problem. People generally come in two flavors. Either verbal elocution comes easily, or written expression does (I guess there's the third that can't do either). If you happen to be the former and, as you describe, occassionally have trouble with the latter, my advice is to use your strength to overcome your weakness.

Instead of sitting down in front of the computer to "write that standards-design page" and getting all blocked up (a blank Word document can be more intimidating than a 250lb wrestler), use the fact that you can verbally explain the arguement as a starting point. Get out a mini-tape recorder and explain the concept of standards based design advantages to yourself. Then go back and transcribe what you said into the computer.

This will give you text on the screen to then start editing and manipulating, a far less daunting task than starting fresh at sentence one.

Personally, I would advise against using someone else's explanation of these things on your own web site. Not because your potential clients will go to that person for their design services, but because it makes it look as if you can't explain what you do.

Just my $.02.

cEM