These days, just about everyone with a computer spends several hours a day reading email, memos, news, research and social networks from a computer screen.
Sadly, the vast majority of content on the web is poorly written, too long, and badly laid out.
Hence, my Internet Writing Manifesto:
• Keep sentences and paragraphs short. Big blobs of copy suck. If removing any word in your sentence doesn’t change the meaning, you’re not done writing.
• Eliminate hype words – nobody believes them anyway (most, only, first, best, greatest….) Usability expert Jakob Nielsen found that readability improved by 27% when hype words were removed.
• White space is your friend. Use it to make reading from the screen easier. Nothing is harder to read than a solid block of copy.
• Use the simplest possible word and sentence structure.
• Read your copy out loud and make sure you don’t get stuck on complex construction. If you trip on a word in the midst of reading a sentence aloud, re-write the sentence.
• Make the lead paragraph tell who and what the story is about and why the reader should care.
• Forget what you learned about business writing in school if you graduated before 1990. Stiff, formal writing is only for lawyers. And you know what Shakespeare said about them.
• Use bulleted points whenever you can.
• If you write about a product or service, include the price and a link.
• Always use subheads every few paragraphs, even in a one-page piece.
Best writing advice I ever got
• Edit, edit, edit
The best advice I ever got about writing was from my first boss, the late Leo Miller, who taught me a game to play with sentences.
He’d keep taking out words until removing one more word destroyed the meaning of the sentence. For example: Take out words until removing another destroys the sentence meaning.
He’d keep taking out words until removing one more word destroyed the meaning of the sentence. For example: Take out words until removing another destroys the sentence meaning.
Very interesting post, and quite helpful too. I agree, using bullets is a big help for user friendliness. It also helps me too. I t also makes it easier on the writer to convey specifics.
Darn good post BLO
When I worked as a newspaper writing coach, I played this fun little game when teaching reporters how to write tight.
I told them to remove as many words as possible from a news article they wrote without changing the meaning of the article. I’d give them $1 for every word they removed. And they’d compete to see who could “earn” the most money.
They never got the money, of course, because newspapers are dirt cheap. But I’d take the winner to lunch.