Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: Writing for the web (newbies)
Author: Brian Carnell Posted: 12/7/1999; 10:37:57 AM Topic: Writing for the web (newbies) Msg #: 13479 (In response to 13477) Prev/Next: 13478 / 13480
I like to quote myself, so:"BTW, regarding that Chronicle of Higher Ed. piece you commented on. If educator's think technology creates bad writers, perhaps that explains the almost unreadable prose found in most professional academic journals."
Notice the error up there -- "educator's" rather than "educators."
Which brings me to the single most important piece of advice I'd give to anyone who writes for the web or any other medium -- rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. When I write an article that will be submitted to an editor, I usually put it through a minimum of 5 drafts, and often go through 10 or 15 drafts even on very short articles. A lot of the bad writing I see on and off the web comes from first draft-itis.
Even with my web logs at the end of the day or early the next morning I'll review what I've written that day to make sure there aren't any glaring spelling, grammatical or content/context errors (and usually there are).
Another thing I always do is make sure I edit everything I write on hard copy at least once. I find it difficult to do serious editing of an electronic document -- I usually write, print, edit, repeat, but your mileage may vary.
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