Question: I have a page that is listing links to other websites. Each link is followed by a brief description of the site being linked to. I want the link text to be slightly larger than the description so I added a CSS class definition a.link, in which I define font-size as 16px. The complete list is inside a standard `<p>` tag and I have `<hr>` tags in between each list item. The problem is that only the first link in the list gets the new font-size. Each link after the first loses all styles defined not only in the link class definition, but in the `<p>` tag as well. If I remove the `<hr>` tags, every item in the list is correctly styled. If I wrap each link in the list inside a `<p>` tag, they also are styled correctly, but I'd rather not clutter up the list with extra tags if possible

Here is my stylesheet code:

```
#pane {
    float: right;
    width: 800px;
}

#pane p {
    margin-left: 15px;
    font-family: verdana;
    font-size: 12px;
}

#pane p a.link { font-size: 16px; }

```

Here is a sample of the HTML generated:

```
<div id="pane">
<p>
    <a href="http://www.google.com" class="link">Google</a> - For finding stuff
    <hr>
    <a href="http://www.newegg.com" class="link">Newegg</a> - For buying stuff
    <hr>
</p>
</div>

```

Has anyone else encountered this behavior and found a way to fix it with adding `<p>` tags everywhere?

Answer: 
Good answer on the `<p>, <hr>`
You'd be better off not using the `<p>`.

Style the `a.link` into `display:block` which will display the a tag just like the enclosing `<p>` tag.

Also auto-close your `<hr/>`

Then correct your css selector: `#pane > a.link` if you need to actually be that selective. Probably better to just style `a.link` by itself, so that you can overwrite it with another selector later if required and not have issues with [specificity](http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2007/07/27/css-specificity-things-you-should-know/).
I think that you have problem with your HR tag, 
in XHTML you have to close your tag.
So your HR should look like `<hr/>`

```
    <div id="pane">
<p>
    <a href="http://www.google.com" class="link">Google</a> - For finding stuff
    <hr/>
    <a href="http://www.newegg.com" class="link">Newegg</a> - For buying stuff
    <hr/>
</p>
</div>

```

Than it should work, no reason not to.