Activity

Take some tips from technical writing which will make your ideas clear and persuasive in the brand new reading environment of the net.

Print media puts the reader in the passenger’s seat. Imagine if you don’t want a character to die? Imagine if you don’t like the direction the story has taken? Traditional reading is linear–you start at chapter one and you go to the end, without detours in between.

Instruction manuals have always been different. Who reads instruction manuals from beginning to end? Instead you dip involved with it, try something, and when that doesn’t seem to work, flip several pages backward or forward and try again.

Now the internet has become a huge manual where in fact the reader can maneuver around at will–technology has stolen authorial control. You will need to expect your readers to jump around. To be successful, anything you write for the web has to follow the same three rules that technical writers use:

Write in Chunks

Readers choose. Recognize that your audience isn’t expecting a story–they have specific goals. Points must be self-contained and clearly marked to help them find what they’re searching for and move ahead. Respect your reader’s time–don’t make them eat the sundae when all they need is the cherry.

Follow a Structure

You can structure your articles by category, rank, location–but there must be a structure. By organizing your information you are giving your reader an instrument that lets them find what they’re searching for and skip what they don’t really need. If write for us technology can’t look for a structure that works, you should define your points more clearly.

Connect it Together

You can’t force your reader to follow the road you’ve set for them, but you can give them usage of information that supports your message. Don’t be afraid to link, both to resources outside your document and to pages in it. Your role would be to help them achieve their goals; point them towards resources that help them do that.

Like technical writing, the internet is approximately helping people find information. Adopt some of the principals of technical writing is likely to work to make it get results.