it means that the code inside the <style type="text/css"> and end </style> tags is css coding, if there is nothing in it, then nothing will change. Newer browsers don't necessarily need that but older ones do, so if you do not see a change, there might be a change on IE 6 and lower. for inline style sheets you just add it to whatever tag, i.e. <p style="color:blue;padding:5px;"> if you remove that style tag the color will go to default and the padding will be removed.
