Cut it down and open it up
July 5, 1999
"Brevity is the soul of wit," 'tis said, and it's certainly
a rare virtue on the Web. Freed from the constraint of paper
costs, prophets, pundits, boosters and just plain windbags go
on and on and on about every conceivable subject. Perhaps
because of this barrage of information and pseudo-information,
most Web readers seem to skim through Web pages, devoting a lot
less attention per word than they would if they were reading a
print publication. Most folks seem to agree that people's
attention spans shorten when they go online.
When writing for the Web, therefore, it's wise to write a
little tighter and meatier than you would for print. Remember
that your readers can click away at any second, and try to keep
their attention by sticking closely to your topic. Avoid
repetition and superfluous clauses. Of course you don't want
to economize so much that your prose becomes stilted and
humorless. Really talented writers find a good balance, and
are able to cover a lot of hard information in a readable,
entertaining way.
In addition to cutting out excess verbiage, it's good to
organize your text in a bit more open, loose format than you
would in print. Be generous with paragraph breaks and headings
- they make pages a little more eye-friendly and easier to
scan quickly. If appropriate, don't be afraid to use things
like
bulleted lists and
tables - anything to make the
information jump out at the reader, instead of making them
sift through long paragraphs to get at it.
When writing for the Web, keep in mind that you're writing for an
international audience. If you want your work to be
comprehensible to visitors
from around the world, avoid Americanisms (such as
metaphors like "batting
average," "drop back and punt," etc.) and/or Britishisms
("close of play,"
"sticky wickets" [I just had to get that one in there]).
Puns and plays on
words can definitely cause problems. People whose first language is not
English
may be confused or misled by them.
Writing for the Web
Writing for the Web
Keep your readers informed
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