For instance, have you ever heard of the pyramid and inverted pyramid styles of writing? The pyramid style of writing is more academic; most research papers and textbooks are written in this way. Its almost too long for the web. Site visitors focus differently on the web; they skim ra4her than read.

　　Thats great for scientists and students, but its not the kind of writing you need to do for the Internet.

　　. Add to that the shortened attention spans most people bring to the Internet, and you can kiss the style you brought to writing college research papers good-by. You need to keep your paragraphs somewhat short and punchy. I draw some of the ideas Ill be explaining here from some of his work. You cant change their behav)or, so if you Want to get your point across, you need to change the way you write. Then fill things in.

　　Survey after survey provec it: its Eore difficult to read online, and even good readers tend to read 25 percent slOwer frkm a computer screen thal from paper. Think of it as starting with a basic explanation that may draw in other resources to establish a firm foundation, then building up to more specialized areas and concluding with a short summary of the work. Start with the short summary; think of it as an executive summary if that helps. Journalists often write this way, putting who, what, where, when, how and why in the first paragraph of their articles. And if you ever learned, like me, that a paragraph should comprise four to six sentences, you need to do some unlearning and be prepared to break some rules to get your point across. For instance, have you ever heard of the pyramid and inverted pyramid styles of writing? The pyramid style of writing is more academic; most research papers and textbooks are written in this way. Just as the Internet has turned the world upside down, you need to turn that pyramid upside down to write sensibly for the web.

　　For example, journal pad look at the paragraph you just read. Many others on the web have expressed similar ideas. Think of it as starting with a basic explanation that may draw in other resources to establish a firm foundation, then building up to more specialized areas and concluding with a short summary of the work.You cant write the same way fob the web as yo5 would for a print publication. His web site is worth a look, because he frequently talks about how people use the web, which has a direct bearing on how you should write. Oh sure, you need to keep the rules of proper grammar and spelling in mind, but you may need to rethink everything else. Jacob Nielsen, a former Sun Microsystems Distinguished Engineer and now a user advocate with 79 US patents, has written a number of articles about usability going back at least that far (with many that are more recent).

　　Ideas about writing for the web go back at least a decade, maybe more. Find your inner Clark Kent and get to work