#20740
Web Application Maps Business Opportunities
A technical writer develops a way to help a government contractor uncover procurement opportunities -- and in the process discovers a new opportunity for himself as an information profit center.
Montague Institute Review (1998). Articles>Knowledge Management>Information Design>Technical Writing
#25220
Web Page Headlines - Keep them Clear and Simple
If a web page doesn’t have a clear, simple headline at the top, it should. A headline is the fastest way to help a new reader find out what the page is about. It’s a clue, it provides direction.
Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2005). Articles>Web Design>Writing
#25229
Web Site Copy is about More Than Keywords
For writers who focus too intently on keywords and phrases, there is a danger. A danger in optimizing your pages for good keywords? Yes, I think so.
Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2004). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Search
#31274
Web Text That's Worth It: The Six Most Underrated Types of Digital Copy
Digital copy is underappreciated, underrated and - astonishingly - still the poor cousin of the web relaunch process.
E-Consultancy (2008). Articles>Web Design>Writing
#26145
Web Writing Guidelines Backed by Research
In the past, I have been bothered by the lack of a coherent summary of research on web writing. In November 2003 the problem was solved by the (US) National Cancer Institute, for the time being, at least.
McAlpine, Rachel. Quality Web Content (2004). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Standards
#26723
Web Writing: Create Writing Flow With Four Uncommon Connectors
Connectors -- conjunctions, punctuation, and transitional phrases -- allow readers to process information promptly by creating balance and relationships between sentence parts. The connectors are performing the same work as verbs, objects, modifiers and multiple subjects.
Franz, Catherine. Klariti (2005). Articles>Web Design>Writing
#25555
Weblogs and the Mass Amateurization of Publishing
A lot of people in the weblog world are asking 'How can we make money doing this?' The answer is that most of us can't. Weblogs are not a new kind of publishing that requires a new system of financial reward. Instead, weblogs mark a radical break.
Shirky, Clay. Shirky.com (2002). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging
#25575
Weblogs Revisited: The Phenomenon of Public Digital Journals
Notwithstanding the fact that lexicographers have come up with definitions for blog, if you asked a few dozen bloggers what makes a blog a blog, you would probably get a few dozen answers.
Kissell, Joe. Interesting Thing of the Day (2004). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging
#25582
Weblogs, Rhetoric, Community, and Culture
Looking at blogs as rhetorical artifacts allows scholars to examine the ways in which they contribute to changing what it means to communicate online. To this end, the articles presented here view the blog through the lens of their social, cultural, and rhetorical features and functions. Through study of the language, discourse, and communicative practices of bloggers, the authors provide insight into weblogs as a means of representing and expressing the self, forming identity, facilitating student-centered learning, building community, and disseminating information.
Gurak, Laura J., Smiljana Antonijevic, Laurie Johnson, Clancy Ratliff and Jessica Reyman. Into the Blogosphere (2004). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging
#25219
What Kind of Web Writer are You?
Web writers are divided up into two groups: content writers and copywriters.
Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2005). Articles>Web Design>Writing
#25450
Assuming a Wiki is a weblog-like system that allows anyone to edit anything (I know some don't) then a Wiki represents an interesting amalgam of many voices, not the unedited voice of a single person.
Winer, Dave. Harvard University (2003). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging
#25560
Every day it seems another article about weblogs appears in the press. At first, most of these stories seemed content to cover the personal nature of blogging. But more and more I'm seeing articles that attempt to examine the journalistic and punditry aspects of weblogs prominent in many of the so-called 'warblogs,' or sites that began in response to the events of September 11th
Hourihan, Meg. O'Reilly and Associates (2002). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging
#25489
What's Really Going On With the Blogosphere? 
Explores the notion of the blogosphere by using recent studies to soberly refocus the actual size of the blogosphere and the extent of the blogging phenomenon.
Vieta, Marcelo. Digest (2003). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging
#26135
When is a Long Document Not a Long Document?
Change is upon us, whether we like it or not. HTML is the default technology for accessible documents online according to the W3C and most government standards. That means goodbye to the easy solution of flinging scores of long documents on to a web site as Word or PDF files.
McAlpine, Rachel. Quality Web Content (2005). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Standards
#28837
When You Write a Site Build It Web Page, Give It The "Help a Friend Test"
Acting in your capacity as a friend, as well as an expert, you would probably ask a few questions first, just to be sure you really understand the problem. And when you did start offering some advice, you would want to be helpful. You would want to offer some genuine guidance. And if you did have some services you could offer, you would recommend only those services that were directly relevant to the problem.
Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2007). Articles>Web Design>Writing
#28820
A designer formats and places text. Technically, the job ends there. But some designers go further, sharpening their clients' content to grab and focus user attention. In so doing, they create more effective sites--and gain an advantage over other designers. Drawing on decades of copywriter lore, Shaun Crowley discusses seduction by headline and other principles of writing that sells.
Crowley, Shaun. List Apart, A (2007). Articles>Web Design>Writing
#25552
There are, I'm sure, as many reasons to keep weblogs as there are weblogs authors, however, some common threads surely exist between them. What could motivate someone to keep a public journal of their innermost thoughts? What possible reasons would someone have?
Indiana State University (2002). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging
#31605
Winning Content Persuades, Not Manipulates
Elements of persuasion are important to creating winning content. To help safeguard content from becoming manipulation, we need to understand its distinction from persuasion. As a step toward that understanding, this article: provides basic definitions of persuasion and manipulation; explores the key differences between them; and describes some consequences for UX content.
Jones, Colleen. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Rhetoric
#26147
Some main points submitted by readers about writing for intranets, in quotation marks or paraphrased.
McAlpine, Rachel. Quality Web Content (2004). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Writing
#25589
Women and Children Last: The Discursive Construction of Weblogs
As yet there has been little empirical examination of the claim that blogs are 'democratic,' or that blog authors represent diverse demographic groups.
Herring, Susan C., Inna Kouper, Lois Ann Scheidt and Elijah L. Wright. Into the Blogosphere (2004). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging
#24140
Words: The Last, Best Way to Differentiate Yourself Online
Writing is a subject that doesn't crop up too often at conferences. Why not? ecause writing is not one of the sexy things that happens online. Programming is sexy. Online design is sexy. The technology behind e-mail and e-commerce is sexy.
Usborne, Nick. ClickZ (2001). Articles>Writing>Diction>Web Design
#28974
Write Articles, Not Blog Postings
To demonstrate world-class expertise, avoid quickly written, shallow postings. Instead, invest your time in thorough, value-added content that attracts paying customers.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Web Design>Writing
#24141
Write Copy that Directs the Site Visitor Forward
The copy or content on a page often comes to an end without having communicated the need to move forward now.
Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2001). Articles>Web Design>Writing
#19020
Periodic sentences are long, complex sentences, often with several introductory clauses, in which the main point is delayed for dramatic effect. They're like gourmet meals that build to a flaming dessert: extravagant, delicious, climactic. But they don't belong on Web sites, because they can't be scanned -- and 79 percent of readers on the Web scan.
Henning, Kathy. ClickZ (2001). Articles>Writing>Web Design
#18929
Writing for the Web is different than writing for other media. But, it can be a very cost-effective way of making sure people know about your services and products.
