Even if Twitter is Just a Geek Haven, It's Still Very Influential

Even if Twitter is Just a Geek Haven, It's Still Very Influential
There's been an interesting discussion over the last few days about Twitter's reach. WSJ reporter Kara Swisher surveyed her dinner party and found out that no one there uses the micro-blogging site. Meanwhile Gina Trapani on Lifehacker is running a...

50 Open Source Resources for Online Writers
Via Job Profiles.com, a list of 50 Awesome Open Source Resources for Online Writers. They include various free word processors and reference tools. I can't vouch for any of them, but it might be worth the time it takes to download some and experiment a bit.

Via Job Profiles.com, a list of 50 Awesome Open Source Resources for Online Writers.

They include various free word processors and reference tools. I can't vouch for any of them, but it might be worth the time it takes to download some and experiment a bit.

links for 2008-04-30
The Science of Thinking Smarter: A Conversation with Brain Expert John J. Medina "Neuroscience can show managers ways to improve productivity." (tags: science Productivity attentioncrash) Morgan Stanley’s March Internet Trends Report: Social Applications Dominating (tags: Trends Stats Web2.0) Who do...

Cornerstone Content for Better Business Blogging
Do you know what I think most business blogs are missing? A clearly defined key post that explains: • what the blog author’s core message is • what the blog author’s story is and why they are blogging • what...

Spring Cleaning
I've just finished grading the last assignments of the semester...and of my 41-year teaching career. With a little more free time, I hope to spend more time learning about webwriting, and overhauling this site, which is about four years old. As a first step, I've gone through the Web Writers and Editors list, updating a few links and dropping those that don't seem active. If you're an online writer or...

I've just finished grading the last assignments of the semester...and of my 41-year teaching career. With a little more free time, I hope to spend more time learning about webwriting, and overhauling this site, which is about four years old.

As a first step, I've gone through the Web Writers and Editors list, updating a few links and dropping those that don't seem active. If you're an online writer or editor, and you'd like a link to your site, drop me a note.

And if you're already on the list, drop me a note about how things are going for you. Are you getting enough work? Enough interesting work? Learning about the business? Joining the French Foreign Legion for better pay and working conditions? Found any other good webwriting resources?

Whatever, let me know and I'll post your observations.

A new resource in French
I'm very happy to have received a copy of L'écrit Web, by Joel Ronez. Even with my primitive reading ability in French, I can see it's a well-organized and well-designed book for webwriters. I'm putting Joel's site in the list of Web Writers and Editors.

I'm very happy to have received a copy of L'écrit Web, by Joel Ronez. Even with my primitive reading ability in French, I can see it's a well-organized and well-designed book for webwriters. I'm putting Joel's site in the list of Web Writers and Editors.

When governments don't understand the web
Between school and a book and other blogging, I've been neglecting this site. But this afternoon I posted an item on my H5N1 blog that has a lot to do with webwriters' problems: When governments don't understand the web.

Between school and a book and other blogging, I've been neglecting this site. But this afternoon I posted an item on my H5N1 blog that has a lot to do with webwriters' problems: When governments don't understand the web.

links for 2008-05-05
How to tag nearly anything anywhere in Leopard | Dennis Best (tags: OSX Leopard Tags spotlight lifehacks) Geek Tip: Keep Your iPod Cords Untangled For Free | geeksugar (tags: ipod iphone lifehacks) Is Your Consumer Using Social Media? - Advertising...

Nielsen on the Top Ten Application-Design Mistakes
Jakob Nielsen has a good Alertbox post: Top-10 Application-Design Mistakes. Nielsen generally makes good sense, but I wish he would update his own Alertbox site. His links are helpful, and the basic black-on-white layout is inviting. The summary at the top is a good idea. He keeps most of his paragraphs short. But the text stretches across the screen when it would be more readable and inviting in a narrower...

Jakob Nielsen has a good Alertbox post: Top-10 Application-Design Mistakes.

Nielsen generally makes good sense, but I wish he would update his own Alertbox site. His links are helpful, and the basic black-on-white layout is inviting. The summary at the top is a good idea. He keeps most of his paragraphs short.

But the text stretches across the screen when it would be more readable and inviting in a narrower column. An average of 10 to 12 words per line seems to work best for webtext.

As Nielsen himself has taught us, we look for boldface subheads as navigation guides. But he uses boldface in the body of his paragraphs, which is distracting...and when a boldface phrase shares the line with an underlined blue link and regular text, the result is pretty messy.

Content Marketing Blogs: We made the list!
Joe Pulizzi of Junta42 announces his Top 42 Blogs for content marketing this week, and WritingontheWeb.com, this blog, went from #25 to #24! He's getting more stringent on qualifications so I consider myself lucky indeed. What I like most about...

Educate your readers: 4 ways people learn
Remember the 3 E’s of Better Business Blogging? It's my short hand memory checklist before publishing a blog post: Educate, Entertain, & Engage readers. You write to educate, entertain and engage readers when you want to build readerships and get...

On Foggy Writing
Dave Wood wrote to me the other day: I was somewhat aghast at finding one of my web pages coming in at a fog reading of 15+ - I'm just in the middle of revamping it now and am determined to have an index below 9. I did find a glitch in a site you'd recommended: Readability.info. It wasn't accepting my files and seemed to convert them to a read-only...

Dave Wood wrote to me the other day:

I was somewhat aghast at finding one of my web pages coming in at a fog reading of 15+ - I'm just in the middle of revamping it now and am determined to have an index below 9.

I did find a glitch in a site you'd recommended: Readability.info. It wasn't accepting my files and seemed to convert them to a read-only in my own files. I had to re-start the computer to get rid of that setting. It may be local to my computer?

I did find another site that worked better in that it didn't require me to upload my files but accepted a paste: Gunning Fog Index.

I've had a similar problem with Readability.info. When I try to upload a Word file, it instantly tells me it found no sentences. Put in a URL, however, and equally instantly it provides a number of readability indices. I've written to the owner of the site, and will pass along his response. (Update: He tells me the problem arose after a switch of servers. Look for a fix after Christmas.)

In the meantime, while it's helpful to know the general readability of your website's text, you can do a lot just by following a few simple practices:

1. Keep text columns narrow.
Ideally, the longest line in a column should be 15 words. Ten would be better.

2. Keep words short.
"Magic" is better than "prestidigitation." "Idea" is better than "conceptualization."

3. Keep sentences short.
On some of my blogs, I excerpt articles from print media. Too often, especially in the first paragraph, a sentence goes on for well over 20 words. I don't rewrite such sentences, but I wish I could. Bulleted lists can often replace strings of words and phrases.

4. Keep paragraphs short.
In most fonts used on websites, six or seven lines should be enough for a paragraph. Even if it's a long, complex idea that belongs in a long paragraph, break it up. A long, solid mass of screen text will discourage too many potential readers.

5. Put a little white space between paragraphs.
A short line at the end of a paragraph isn't enough of a break. Just one hit on the Return key can make a world of difference in helping people read your text.

6. Put important words and phrases in "hot spots."
Your sentence's beginning and end are its hot spots. Here readers pay most attention and react most strongly to what they read. Hot spots cool off in sentences buried in mid-paragraph. Then the end of the last sentence becomes hot again.

So a paragraph starting with "There" or "It" has wasted a good hot spot.

7. Use bolded subheads to help navigation.
A subhead every few paragraphs gives readers an overview of the whole document. A numbered list like this one, with bolded and numbered lines, is also easier to understand.

8. Break these rules when you must.
Follow them too closely, and your writing style may start to sound dull and predictable. Too many short sentences (and bulleted lists) will give you too many hot spots. That will make you sound as if you're ranting.

The above text, pasted into the Gunning Fog site, turns out to have a Fog index of 7.396. Out of 517 words, 47 have three or more syllables. I did some revision while writing it, but 7.396 seems like a reasonable level of clarity.

A link to the Gunning Fog Index site is now in the Webwriting Resources list in the left-hand column.