Writing Well

Online readers usually come to web pages looking for an answer. The quicker they see that your page has an answer to their question (or doesn’t), the quicker they will be able to decide whether to continue reading.

To help readers, you should keep your writing even tighter for the web than for other forms of communication. Use shorter paragraphs, shorter sentences and common words whenever possible.

REMEMBER:

  • Most web readers scan web pages. Straightforward subheads and bulleted lists help them spot what they want quickly.
  • Make your content actionable.
  • The average reader has a reading level well below college reading acumen.
  • Users only read longer passages when they are highly motivated to get extended information and when they are sure they have found what they need.
  • Avoid complex sentences. Break them into two shorter sentences whenever possible.

Audience

As communicators for the university, we engage a wide variety of audiences. Members of each audience have different expectations and desires for the material they read.

General Audience

Writing for a general audience can prove difficult. Your writing has to appeal across ages, cultures, genders and reading level. We can’t assume our general readers will know our particular topic, so we avoid jargon. We know that reading levels stretch from grade school kids to learned professors, so our writing needs to use common language but without becoming simplistic. Erring on the side of a third-person tone is safer, although we want our writing to remain welcoming and open to all readers.

We have readers who are from other nations and cultures, so try to avoid idioms that only an American might dig … er, um … understand.

Students and Prospective Students

When writing for students, your tone can be less formal than for older adults, although a lot of our students are non-traditional, so don’t go overboard. Adopting a second-person style of writing is the easiest way to engage a reader and create an informal level of communication. Using “you” to refer to the reader draws the reader into your writing more so than a strictly third-person style.

We want to be inclusive and welcoming to students, so don’t write down to them or patronize them as readers. Every single one of them has a story to tell and we should listen.

Faculty and Staff

When writing for faculty and staff, you should adopt a more direct and succinct tone. If you’re writing for a narrow audience that will understand the terminology of a faculty member’s particular field of study, feel free to use it appropriately. If you’re writing to a wider faculty audience, remember to explain those terms that might have a specific meaning in a specific field.

Alumni

Alumni are family, so writing in a familiar tone helps. They are in the know about our campus traditions and the ways we talk about the university. Using “U of A” rather than the full name of the institution is no problem. Most of our alumni still have strong emotional bonds to the campus, so your writing should usually reflect some level of reverence for the campus and its traditions.

Do’s and Don’ts

  • Do know your audience.
  • Do use short sentences.
  • Don’t use meaningless words or jargon.
  • Don’t write technically.
  • Do use small blocks of text instead of lengthy paragraphs.
  • Do use implicit text for your links.
    • Phrases like “click here” or “links” distract from the content. Write your links so that they are a natural part of the sentence.
    • For example, instead of “Biology students love their major. Click here to read more about Biology,” use “Biology students love their major.”
  • Do update your pages regularly.
  • Do show date of update so visitors feel confident the information is current.
  • Do ask for feedback and provide an email address to submit it.
  • Don’t show any page “under construction.” If it’s not finished, don’t publish it.
  • Don’t change links. People will link to your site/content, so don’t break the links.
  • Don’t create dead ends. A dead end page is linked to by other pages but has no links. Visitors get trapped on a dead end page and have to use the back button.
  • Do regularly check all of the links on your site to avoid 404 errors.
  • Do always supply textual links.

Using only clickable images or image maps makes your site unusable for anybody that disables images. Images should always have ALT text as well.