Entries in "Writing"
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May 04, 2008
5 reasons your blog should have an editorial policy
While the medium is different, blogs have much in common with magazines. They're published periodically, can accept subscriptions (via RSS feeds), may (or may not) accept advertising and typically focus on a particular topic or niche. If you blog, you have some notion of your topical area in your head, but have you defined it for your readers? If not, it may be time to take a page from the magazines and define a clear editorial policy for your blog.
December 10, 2007
Voice and Tone: Writing to reflect your personality as well as your message (Part 2)
When I first broached this topic in October, I wrote about tone. Today, I'll focus on voice, that certain aspect of writing that conveys the personality and/or style of the writer. Unlike tone -- which is geared to your goal and audience -- voice is about you, the writer. Just as your speaking voice remains recognizable under different circumstances -- whether you're reading stories to small children or arguing about the gift return policy at the mall -- so, too should your written voice.
December 05, 2007
Copy Writing: Long vs. Short, Does it Matter?
Torc waterfall, Killarney National Park Today's my third day back at work after my vacation in Ireland. I have a number of ideas for upcoming entries, but as I started cleaning up the blog comments that came in while I was gone, I saw an interesting question that had been posted on the Web writers: What are we? entry. Mike asked: What role does long form copy writing have in writing B2B copy for the internet? I must say I am confused. The 'weight' (if not quality) of opinion from largely self-proclaimed internet guru writers is that long form...
October 11, 2007
Voice and Tone: Writing to reflect your personality as well as your message (Part 1)
Last week someone posted a question to the WordNerds group regarding the importance of voice and tone in writing. In particular she wanted to know how to convey the importance of voice and tone to colleagues who aren't professional writers. Not having covered this topic previously I thought I'd give it a go.
April 02, 2007
Don't say "click here." Include your links in context.
After more than a decade of Web development, most of us have gotten used to adding links within the context of our text—just as I did in this sentence. Yet despite our good habits, awareness and best intentions, many links are still awkwardly managed.
March 28, 2007
Writing to be understood by your audience
One of our campus Web maintainers recently asked if our department advocated writing to a certain reading level. I responded that while "fours years below the level of your audience" is a decent rule of thumb, the most important thing is to write clearly.
November 13, 2006
A writer's obligations: ethics, law and pragmatism, Part 3: Pragmatism
The Ford lecture site asks the reader to register and prpvides additional information to help the reader to decide whether or not to attend. While I'll probably post additional entries on ethics, today we'll discuss what I expect will be the simplest chapter in this series, pragmatism. When I think of applying pragmatism to our Web development strategies, I think of taking a practical approach that examines our options in regard to their intended consequences. In particular I want to ensure that our choices support our goals. I discussed goals earlier in the Planning Your Web site tutorial, but...
October 27, 2006
A writer's obligations: ethics, law and pragmatism, Part 2a: Ethics
Last week I promised you I'd write about ethics and the Web. Ever since I've been wondering if I bit off more than I could chew and have been trying to find a way to approach this rather broad topic.
October 20, 2006
A writer's obligations: ethics, law and pragmatism, Part 1: Law
Fair Use? In a former career, I designed the cover of this law book and drew the illustration of the column based on a design created by a colleague for another book in the series. Using the image to illustrate a point seems to be fair use. However if I had re-used the drawing of the column as part of another design, be it a book cover, poster or something else, that would probably not be fair because the publisher, my former employer, maintains the copyright for the illustration. Last week I wrote about the different roles we may...
October 13, 2006
Web writers: What are we? Journalists? Marketers? Information Providers? Opinion makers? Scholars?
One of our bloggers wrote me this week with some questions regarding the choices we make in the content we include and the responsibilities that may affect those choices. As I was responding to his questions, it occurred to me that these choices are really determined by the goal of our Web site or blog, and the role we play as writers. Today I would like to explore the different types of writers that may be posting content online, and what their roles or responsibilities may be. In a future entry I'll discuss how these roles can impact our...
August 31, 2006
WordNerds Discussion Group
Tuesday's Case Daily announcement about the WordNerds listserv and discussion group brought in a number of inquiries. In order to offer more information to those of you who are interested, I thought I would share the following messages, as provided by core members of the group. About WordNerds Formally known as the Case Writers' and Editors' Forum, we are a group of Case staff members who present the messages of the university to internal and external audiences. We are communications, marketing, public relations, Web, and news and information specialists who spend a lot of time thinking, writing, and editing. Message...
April 17, 2006
Building your site: Tertiary pages—When more is more
In the Planning your Web site articles I wrote on first and secondary pages, I recommended not overwhelming the user with too many choices or too much information. That less is more approach works very well to ensure that critical information is not lost in a crowd of words, and helps us set up an easy to maneuver navigational system. But as we get deeper into specific areas of the site, our goals and strategies change. Once we have carefully guided our visitors to our third, fourth and deeper level pages, it is time to reward them with in-depth...
March 23, 2006
Beware of your vocabulary
Last night some associates and I were bemoaning the proliferation of obfuscation instigated by the intentional propagation of technical jargon in modern-day communication. Or rather—to phrase it more clearly and accurately—we were complaining about the overuse of business doublespeak. I see this in two forms on the web. Some writers choose to muddy their messages by peppering their sentences with big words. While these words may demonstrate the writer's vast vocabulary, they can often confuse the reader, particularly if these words are less accurate than their smaller, yet equally powerful counterparts. Another issue that concerns me is the appropriate use...