"next for text" - amy eisman, american university

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What’s next for web writing 

Teaching Text

Amy EismanAmerican UniversityTeach-a-ThonJournalism InteractiveOctober 28, 2011

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15 tips5 minutes

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1. Yep, know the research

Ugliest site, best advice -- Jakob Nielsen’s useit.com 

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html  

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4Copyright Jakob Nielsen alertboxhttp://www.useit.com/alertbox

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But keep going back …

new research comes in all the time 

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Copyright screen grab from Jakob Nielsen Alertbox, June 2011http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ 

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2. Note that clean writing is good business 

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3. Use Yahoo! Style Guide for great tips 

(See pages 297-304 for how to cut extraneous words)

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4. Practice visual editing

• Put key ideas in display type

• Break up blocks of type with subheads

• Break stories into scannable chunks

• Be consistent (past or present)

• Break copy into bullets

• Reach for strong verbs

• Don’t back into sentences with prepositional phrases 

• Use simple sentence structure  – subject verb object

• Write content that works with visuals

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5. Make every journalism assignment have … 

1. A 5-8 word headline

2. A 10-12 word blurb

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6. Make every email subject line work 

Bad subject line: Book 

Good subject line: Why Jarvis book made me crazy 

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7. Stop telling students … 

to write short

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8. Web writing is … 

More casual than print

Attribution summarized

Links

Enhancements

Archives

Interactivity

Follows consistent style

Says something!

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9. Study great web heds 

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10. Do the same assignment, compare 

• CoveritLive

• Storify

• Twitter

• Traditional web

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11. Focus on display type 

Last thing writers write

First thing readers see

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12. Show examples

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13. Debate web text

Are typos OK on Twitter?

How many links are too many?

Does the mobile headline work?

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14. Say something 

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15. A little humor doesn’t hurt