© UWIC Academic Skills team, December 2009 student.uwic.ac.uk/academicskills 1

10 web-writing tips from the Academic Skills team

These are derived from the excellent Web-writing training material by Stephen Lloyd Training

(www.stephenlloydtraining.co.uk). Tips apply to screens intended to contain mostly, or all, text.

1. Top down

Put the most significant information first, near the top of the screen (hot space). Readers’

attention dwindles exponentially the further down they go, and few readers will read on into zones

reached only by scrolling (cold space). Hint: why do you think that commercial sites usually hide

their terms and conditions near the bottom of a long screen in very small font size?

2. Build a structure, not scaffolding

Structure information logically, using powerful, clear headlines. Good headlines fit the space

without overwhelming it, make immediate sense, tell a story and attract reader interest. Generate

a relationship between your reader and yourself by using personal pronouns and questions. Don’t

repeat headlines in the subsequent text. Consider using a brief link index at the top of the page to

enable your reader to leap to the text s/he wants to read.

3. Use summaries as navigation tools

If information is very detailed, it is better to put up a two-line summary with a link to a more

explanatory .pdf. This way your readers do not wade through a lot of text which may not deliver

the outcomes they want, they can choose between options, and they can export a record of the

information in a print-friendly format. Hints: from the reader perspective, humans love the

empowerment of being given choices; from your perspective it’s much quicker to change/correct a

document than possibly have to redo a whole web-page.

4. Start memorably

Make a strong start. Try to kick off your first sentence with a powerful verb or significant key

word. Your first sentence should be something you want the reader to remember from the site.

5. Condense and clarify

Convey your message using at least 50% fewer words than you would in a print version: the screen

is a stressful reading space, so give your reader less to do. Aim to keep sentences to about 20

words and avoid elaborately punctuated, multi-clause sentences. One point = one sentence. If you

are tempted to write a long list sentence, format it as bullets: these are much easier to read on

screen. Ensure that any bullets make sense with the grammar of the preceding sentence, and are

clearly part of a paragraph or section.

© UWIC Academic Skills team, December 2009 student.uwic.ac.uk/academicskills 2

6. White space, not white noise

With the standard 19” screens of today, it is vital your reader can separate the parts of a screen.

Try to keep paragraphs to between five and seven lines and no more than three sentences.

While single sentence paragraphs are acceptable on websites, do not separate all your text into

single sentences. Do, however, have a clear space between paragraphs.

If you are using a heading to introduce a section on a longer page, try to structure the section so

the reader can see all of it on one screen with heading at the top. Avoid right justifying paragraphs

as this generates ‘rivers’ of varied space in the text which detract from readability, particularly for

those with impaired reading skills. If you can control the line height, a small element of ‘leading’

such as the 1.1 used in this document, greatly assists readability.

7. Emphasise and connect

Use text emphasis with caution and discretion i.e. bold. Avoid italics as these are a great strain to

read on screen. Don’t use colours or underlining to make words stand out as the communicative

grammar of the internet now associates these with hyperlinks.

Use meaningful links rather than URLs e.g. “Visit the UWIC external site for more information”

makes a much better impression than “Visit http://www3.uwic.ac.uk/English/Pages/home2.aspx

for more information.”

8. Don’t patronise your user

Assume basic internet literacy. Do not end a sentence with ‘click here’ when there’s a button next

to it. Incidentally, label buttons where possible.

9. Appoint a continuity director

If you are working on a jointly authored site, agree a spelling, punctuation and language policy e.g.

selecting which variant spelling of words such as organisation and organization to go with. Agree

any acronyms used. You may also want to optimise certain key words for searching purposes, and

avoid other words giving the wrong impression. Ideally appoint somebody with an editing role

whose job is to spot and correct inconsistencies.

10. Blowing hot and cold

Be aware of the impact of warm and cold words. Examples of cold words are: afraid, disappoint,

doubt, unfortunately, problem. Warm words are: agree, care, fair, hope, new, opportunity.

Compare “If you have doubts about this proposal” to “Although you’ll want to consider this

proposal carefully”. The first sentence starts with the intrinsically doubtful ‘if’ word, the second

‘Although’ indicates that something more significant is to come.