November 19, 2009 ( PowerHomeBiz.com )
- Writing for the
internet is way different than writing for a huge printed publication. There
are so many choices for internet consumers these days that you really need
to make your writing pop; you need to make it punchy and most of all you
need to make it brief. Web surfers tend to just skim through articles or
even article topics to glean the information they’re seeking. No one wants
to spend excess time reading through loads and loads of information that
might not apply. If you want to get your point across, you can’t change this
behavior, you have to adapt to it.
(article continued below ...)
If you want some proof, surveys show that people find it more difficult
to read when online. Even the best readers read 25% from their computer
screens than from the paper that is in their hand. Couple this fact with the
short attention spans of most internet users and your college essay writing
skills are tossed completely out the window. The basics still do apply; you
need to write with correct grammar and punctuation as well as writing in
complete sentences. But everything else will need some rehabbing.
As an example, the paragraph you just read is almost too long to be
viable for online use. The paragraphs you write need to be short and punchy;
they need to grab the reader’s attention for the 30 seconds that you have
it. You need to unlearn the six sentence rule about paragraphs. As few as
three and no more than five is what you need to keep the reader from getting
bored.
The ideas about effective web writing go back at least 10 years and maybe
even more. A former engineer for Sun Microsystems who is now a user advocate
and has 79 US patents has actually written a number of articles about the
subject. He frequently talks about exactly how users tend to use the
internet on his web site and this has a direct bearing on the way you should
write. Some of the ideas explained here are actually drawn from his work.
There are numerous others on the internet who share similar ideas.
One such idea is the pyramid and inverted pyramid writing styles, ever
heard of it? Well, in the pyramid writing style you would slowly build your
way from the basics to the more advanced ideas; this is largely academic and
is how most textbooks are written. The reverse pyramid is just as it sounds
a reversing of the concept by starting with bold ideas and statements and
then explaining your way down to the basics.
The pyramid style is great for students and scientists, but the style of
writing that would appeal to most internet surfers is the reverse pyramid.
This is the style of writing that journalists use; they put all who’s,
what’s, when’s, where’s, how’s and why’s right at the beginning in a short
summary and then fill in the information in the rest of the article.
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