The city of Tampere held a seminar on web writing for its intranet editors at the Museum Centre Vapriikki last Wednesday. As I worked on my presentation, I looked at materials I created six years ago as part of training for the start of Loora, the city’s intranet. On the basis of participant comments back then, I published a list of good practices—and also collected the most common errors found in online writing.
1. The main topic doesn’t appear at the beginning.
2. Information is not up-to-date.
3. Links don’t work.
4. The title fails to summarize the content.
5. The lead is missing.
6. There is no subtitles.
7. Text is difficult and hard to read.
8. Sentences and paragraphs are too long.
9. Too many lists with random or trivial elements.
10. Buzzwords, needless repetition, and stock phrasing.
11. Unexplained acronyms, abbreviations, and technical terms.
12. Dry content and inappropriate tone.
13. The writer underestimates the reader and overestimates himself.
14. Spelling and grammar errors.
Surprisingly—or not—that six-year-old list makes sense today. I might add to the top of the list a comment from Loora’s editor-in-chief Aila Rajamäki: “The text doesn’t take the reader into account.”