What is the Purpose of the Text?
What do you have to say? Think about what the reader would like to know about the subject. Try to answer the reader’s needs speedily and thoroughly. This article is about how to write an online text which is quick to read.
Don’t Delay What You Have to Say
A good quality online text is usually built in the manner of a newspaper article where the most important material is placed first. You should write the most significant content at the beginning and continue to the less important parts – after that, you can return to the start and add an introduction. The introduction can then be used as a base for the headline, which should essentially offer a description of the story in a nutshell.
The Eye Follows the Left Side of the Text
The news story structure quickly answers the needs of an online reader. The point of the text is presented in the first few lines, and an impatient browser is not going to read much else. Jacob Nielsen has used a camera which tracks the eye movements and stated that electronic newsletters are read in an F-shaped pattern. The headlines and a few first lines are looked through, but after that the eye starts to slide down the left side without really stopping. So you should always pay particular attention to the headlines and the first words in a line of text.
Readability Above All
The writing should remain light both online and on paper. Without noticing it themselves, people are often tempted to write about their own field using jargon that may be incomprehensible to outsiders. You should look at your own text from the perspective of someone outside your group: abbreviations, terminology and long compounds are always less clearly understood than is assumed. Think and write practically: don’t talk about “media” if you specifically mean The New York Times.
Brevity is a virtue. Whenever possible, replace a long expression with a short one. Fight for every word and character. A compact piece of writing is always better than a fumbling long one. In particular, beware of strange, long compound words and the noun-heavy jargon style.
Practice by writing 140 character messages on the subject on Twitter. You’ll get great ideas for headlines as well as introductions – and you’ll notice that longer text is often unnecessary.