Activity

Take some tips from technical writing that will make your ideas clear and persuasive in the 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 just like the direction the story has taken? Traditional reading is linear–you start at chapter one and you also visit the end, without detours in between.

Instruction manuals will always be different. Who reads instruction manuals from beginning to end? Instead you dip into it, try something, and if that doesn’t seem to work, flip several pages backward or forward and try again.

Now the internet has turned into a huge manual where in fact the reader can move around at will–technology has stolen authorial control. You must expect your readers to jump around. To reach your goals, anything you write for the web has to follow exactly the same three rules that technical writers use:

Write in Chunks

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

Follow a Structure

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

Connect it Together

You can’t force your reader to check out the path you’ve set for them, but you can give them usage of information that supports your message. You shouldn’t be afraid to link, both to resources outside your document and to pages inside it. Your role is to help them achieve their goals; point them towards resources that help them do this.

Like technical writing, the internet is about helping people find information. Adopt write for us technology of the principals of technical writing is likely to work to create it get results.