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Writing for the Web

Journalism, not preaching

Writing for the Web requires the style and gifts of the journalist, not the preacher. The Press has had more than 200 years to learn how to communicate effectively in print. Learn from them. Read books on journalistic writing. Observe the way newspapers and magazines tell stories. They know the rules for clear communication and keeping a reader's interest. "These skills pertain equally to the Web. We need to grab attention fast!" says journalistic writing expert Marshall Cook.

Be a squirrel

Read widely, especially secular newspapers and magazines. Useful material can come from the most unlikely places. Cut out and file away stories, illustrations and ideas - they will be useful as a basis for future articles. Facts, figures, quotes from famous (or infamous) people, testimonies, anything and everything. Keep a note-book to jot down useful information quotes and illustrations that you hear, or ideas that come to mind. It will be useful. Of course, you cannot use material word for word without permission. But remember, "Using one source is plagiarism, using two is research." Be aware of copyright issues for both printed material, photos, and (if you use them) music clips.

Although websites must be easy to navigate, no-one will stay on a site that is badly written. "Content is king." So let's put the King in the content, and learn to write with as effective and readable style as we can. To become effective online communicators, we must also learn to be information architects.

There are many online resources to help us learn better writing. Consider writing classes too - these are often offered as evening studies in local education colleges. Maybe God will even call you into full-time journalism or script-writing - there is a big need for Christians in these areas.

Easy on the eyes

It is harder - and 25% slower - to read print from a computer monitor than on paper. If people cannot easily read a page, they will lose interest and leave. Help them by:

Learning more

The Web is a different medium to print and requires a different writing approach. Read:

Taking care of the stranger

Realize that many visitors to an English-language site are second-language speakers from other countries. The resources from the Plain English Campaign are worth printing out for reference.

Revise and edit and revise

Never put a first draft of writing online. Revise and edit many times. It is usually possible to cut word-length by 25% or more, and increase clarity at the same time. Brevity is essential.

Ask other writers to critique your pages, and be humble enough to accept their advice. This is even more important if you are writing webpages in a language which is not your primary birth language.

Kill the typos

Of course you should use spell-check! But this won't find grammatical errors such as it's (only ever means 'it is', never 'belonging to it'), and who's (only ever means 'who is', not 'belonging to [that person]'). Apostrophe with 's' never means more than one of anything - it only ever means 'belonging to' or indicates a missing letter e.g. who's.(Avoid banana's, video's, apple's to mean 'more than one'). This applies to numbers and abbreviations too - 60s and CDs is correct, 60's and CD's (though commonly used) are not really OK. The only time an apostrophe should be used for a plural is when the meaning would otherwise be totally confusing or meaningless, e.g. do's and dont's.There are other easily-made mistakes such as loose meaning 'lose' which rob a web-page of credibility. (One possible trick is to delete these common words from your spell-check dictionary. Then they will always display as errors, so you can assess correct usage.) Bookmark Common Errors as a useful reference.

Hyphens

Hyphens however are under-used. They can link words together in a logical way. This is important where there are several adjectives which belong together. For instance:
The ticket is first class but The first-class ticket
That fact is well known but The well-known fact
Without the hyphen - and especially if the line breaks after the first adjective - meaning is temporarily lost. (And on the Web, unlike print, the point at which a line breaks to the next line is variable.) For the same reason, it is better to hyphenate 'no-one'. By enclosing it in <nobr> tags, you can ensure that a hyphenated word never breaks, in most browsers.

Consistent house-style

It is also important to use a consistent style of punctuation. Use our house-style/grammar guide to help you. It also carries many other resource links, dictionaries and thesauri.

Online training

The Judy Vorfield column

Judy Vorfield's syndicated column on effective writing is updated every few weeks. Bookmark the page for her latest tips.