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When writing about a CMS, I often have to write a phrase that modifies a noun, such as in the following examples.
The users need to have the "Article: Edit own content" permission to edit their own nodes of that content type.
The "Basic page" content type is created from Drupal when it is installed.
Is it correct to write "the 'Basic page' content type," or should I instead write "the content type 'Basic page'"?
The responses in the comments seem to me sufficient to constitute an answer, so I'm posting this to clear the record:
I'd write "the 'Basic page' content type" because it's the standard way of writing a modified noun phrase of this type. It's a little easier to understand because it's normal English word order. The other structure is easy enough to understand, but it takes me just a tad longer.
Short, simple, & direct phrases are usually clearer & easier to understand because they don't draw attention to the writing style. If you want the reader to slow down & reread, then using a novel or more unusual structure is reasonable. -* A since-departed (and lamented) user, Bill Franke*
And a concurrence and expansion:
+1 to Bill's
commanswer. I'd add that if you do go with the second version add a colon between type and 'Basic to help readablity.Another style suggestion is to drop the double quotes for italics or bold. Quotes are more correctly used for quoting (or making an askance inference). -mcalex
