Need advice on best format to store raw article content

I am wondering what the best way is to store content that you know could be used for other applications in the future or partner web sites. Imagine that you have some articles, all of them have standard formatting applied such as bold, italics, and bullets. Nothing complex or involving tables, just the most basic formatting. Now, I've stripped away as much HTML as possible so that I just have the basic tags left and the raw content. Is this the correct way to do it? Also, what's the best way to represent special characters (such as m-dash), should I use the HTML code for that? or should I just stick with XML or XHTML for everything? There must be some best practices out there for this sort of thing.

Here is an example of a chunk of content from an article that is stored in a table field, notice the formatting that I have used:

<p>Ask the employee to describe in detail specific examples of times when they may have been excluded, ignored or not been given credit for their ideas. As you &#034;actively listen&#034; to their description of what happened, try to identify the &#034;feelings&#034; that the person expresses. Paraphrase what you think you heard and get confirmation that your interpretation is correct.</p><p>Be open to discovering that your initial thoughts may be wrong. Perhaps the person has indeed been ignored without good reason. If this is the case, you may need to provide appropriate interventions. However, if the issue really is the employee&#039;s lack of interpersonal skills, help the employee to see how others may have perceived them using the same scenario(s) they have described. For example ask, &#034;How do you think others might have perceived the scenario you just described?&#034; or &#034;In the scenario you described, is it possible that others may have thought...?&#034;</p><p>Because part of your job is to develop your employees, be direct and tell the employee that his or her interpersonal skills may be hampering his or her ability to be heard. Offer to help by providing developmental opportunities (e.g., send him or her to training sessions, provide personal coaching, identify a mentor, etc.).</p>

Is this the right way to go or should I be doing something differently?

TIA
Daniel Received on Thu Jun 13 2002 - 19:30:51 CEST