Recommended Syntax for HTML meta title and description?

I've been told that adding a different meta title and description per page is strongly recommended.

What is the correct way to do this? Is there a recommended naming convention for the title? I assume there's a standard for this rather than whatever the developer decides is best.

title

(Note that the title element is not a "meta title".)

HTML5 defines that the title element should identify documents "even when they are used out of context". So for a typical website, you should always include the site name in the title.

For usability reasons, it’s most of the time a good idea to specify the page name before the site name (e.g., page name – site name).

HTML5 doesn’t recommend a delimiter for separating the page name from the title.

meta-description

HTML5 defines that the description metadata name is used to "describe the page". The value must be "appropriate for use in a directory of pages, e.g. in a search engine".

As the homepage typically represents the whole site, it’s appropriate to describe the site (instead of the page) in the homepage’s meta-description.