The first thing we should mention about this tag is that the aside tag is not for creating sidebars. It is designed to provide additional information about the main content around it. The data within the aside tag should be related to the surrounding content.

Often, it is found within a section, or article, tag set and provides information about the content within its parent’s tag.

This is similar to a playwright who has a character speak to the audience, giving them insights into their thoughts and ideas. It provides supplemental information to the reader that is helpful, but not necessary.

An aside tag is normally shown off to the side of the main content. Styling it will be important to help it stand out from the rest of the content. Consider the following example, where an <aside> is written. This could be any text that you want, but lorem ipsum is used to show the generality. 

<aside>Nam nisl tortor, dignissim a tempus a, tempus a lectus. In venenatis lobortis consequat. Mauris tempor molestie mi et ornare.</aside>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Duis molestie urna id lectus bibendum, eu malesuada lacus ornare. Nulla hendrerit, nisl sed tincidunt faucibus, turpis nunc consectetur magna, id lobortis nulla nunc at velit. Etiam condimentum eros eu iaculis posuere. Duis viverra metus eu diam pretium mollis. Fusce ornare in erat at interdum. Aenean sed dolor tortor. Donec sit amet venenatis augue, vel sodales nibh. Integer eu placerat nunc. Nunc ut justo laoreet, varius lacus elementum, efficitur ante. Praesent pretium mi purus, a posuere urna viverra vel. Morbi viverra eget leo eu bibendum. Vestibulum viverra, leo nec tincidunt tristique, ex lacus finibus massa, vitae dapibus sapien eros id lacus. Pellentesque tincidunt urna a odio dapibus consequat. Aenean finibus, arcu sit amet iaculis blandit, lacus libero ultricies ante, nec commodo quam arcu sed dui. Cras a posuere augue.</p>

Note: The text should usually be only a sentence or two, not a long discussion.

The Aside Tag was originally found on Access 2 Learn

Assistant Professor

Walter Wimberly is an Assistant Professor at a regional college in Tennessee, teaching Computer Science in the Software Engineering track. He works as a student advisor, oversees curriculum changes, develops new courses, and manages the advisory panel.
Walter taught full time for about 7 years, before going back into “industry” as a full stack Software Developer for a dozen years. There he focused on web based projects coding in JavaScript/jQuery and utilizing the Bootstrap CSS Framework on the front-end, and coding in PHP, ASP/ASP.Net, SQL on the back-end.

Since he loves teaching, he taught as an adjunct web and digital media classes for eight (8) years, while working in industry, and has since returned to teaching full time.

He has been married for over 25 years, and is father to several special needs boys. As such, he is working on some projects to help others who have special needs to be self-sufficient, and support the care givers of those with special needs. Check out his Autism blog for more info.

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