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Site MapNot really a map. More of an outline. Here are the major sections of our site. We walk through each item on the main menu, showing you what lies underneath. We've excluded some Easter eggs...extras that appear only on certain pages, like e-books we give away, or bonus checklists. But if you want to see the basic structure of our content, here it is! |
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1. Trim that text!1a. Cut any paper-based text by 50%.1c. Make some sentences short.
1d. Make most paragraphs short.
1f. Move vital but tangential or supplemental material.
1g. Convert repeating categories of information into tables.
1h. Beware of cutting so far that you make the text ambiguous.
2a. Create a meaningful title.
2b. Insert meaningful headlines and subheads.
3a. Make clear what the user will get from the link.
3b. Within a sentence, make the link the emphatic element.
3c. Shift focus from the links or linked-to documents to the subject.
3d. Provide depth and breadth through plentiful links to related information within your site.
3e. Establish credibility by offering outbound links.
3f. Make meta information public.
3g. Write URLs that humans can read.
3i. Tell people about a media object before they download.
4a. Design each paragraph around one idea.
4b. Put the idea of the paragraph first.
4c. If you must include context, put that first.
4d. Put key conclusions, ideas, news, at the start of the article.
5a. Reduce the number of clauses per sentence.
5b. Blow up nominalizations and noun trains.
5c. Watch out for ambiguous phrases a user might have to debate.
5d. Surface the agent and action, so users don't have to guess.
6a. Think of a heading as an object you reuse many times.
6b. Write each menu so it offers a meaningful structure.
6c. Offer multiple routes to the same information.
6d. Write and display several levels at once.
6e. When users arrive at the target, make it obvious.
6f. Confirm the location by showing its position in the hierarchy.
What info consumers want from your text
Do you know who you are talking to?
Create custom content for each group
Use rules or inferences to match individuals & content
Goodbye documents, hello objects!
Moving content from paper to the web!
The problems with massive contentWhat is an informative object?Define entities and other alien creatures
Describe what you create--with metadata
What electronic outlining tools can do for you
How going electronic changes our idea of outlining
How electronic outlining aids collaboration
A new model of outlining: what a difference the medium makes!
Web Text = Content + Interface
Your words are virtually there
When your text becomes the interface
A genre responds to an audience
A genre has a conventional structure
A genre has an agreed-upon tone
How to write FAQs that really answer customer questions
Write questions in the persona of the guest
Put instructions in numbered steps
Embedding your customer assistance: how to write labels, tips, and clues
Put the assistance where people need it
How to organize step-by-step procedures
Put instructions into discrete steps
Organize explanations to follow the train of thought
A group of procedures can be a reusable object
Build a process out of a sequence of procedures
How to write a privacy policy--if you must
Reward me for exposing myself to danger
Write a privacy policy that people can understand
Provide detailed contacts with names and pictures, not faceless forms
Set up guidelines for responses
Make the subject line mean something
Start off recognizing what they said
Writing and editing for your customers!
Join the spammers in random haiku
Who consumes our information, anyway?
We're all buying more content online
Blogging gets the attention of PR
Is your site getting out of date?
Tog on the magic of interface design
Google tells you how many searches you've done today
Hurray for FAQsIf Your Guidelines Fail, Try Entrapment!
Problems? In Editing for the Web?
Get Messy, to Join the Conversation
Advice on web writing and editing
Finding a job as a web writer or editor
Heuristic Online Text (H.O.T.) Evaluations
1. Brevity2. Scannability
So you wannabe a web writer or editor
Where web writers and editors come fromFAQ on life as a professional Web writer
Articles for magazines and web sites
Site Map (You are here!)
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