Writing for the Web (Writers' Edition) (Self-Counsel Writing Series) (Paperback)

~ Crawford Kilian (Author) "When early computer users and researchers began to see how they could navigate through electronic information and link one item to another using something called..." (more)
Key Phrases: web writer, web writing, web text, Jakob Nielsen, Standard English, Holly Cole (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Publishing on the Web is a very simple task. Publishing content that works well in the online medium and communicates effectively is quite another matter. In Writing for the Web, author and freelance writer Crawford Kilian shares his insights about producing just the right type and amount of content for your target sites.

Kilian acknowledges early on his bias toward print publishing, but his viewpoint offers a particularly relevant discussion for other writers moving traditional content to the Web. Throughout the book, he emphasizes his three principles of Web text: orientation, information, and action. These principles wisely expand the reader's view from content and grammar to the special interactivity and technical-viewing aspects of reading online.

The book is quite brief at only 140 pages, but contains some useful traditional style tips, such as using active tense, strong verbs, and precise word choices. Ironically, the book doesn't include any screen shots to illustrate formatting guidelines in action on real Web sites. This lack of visual connection to the presented techniques detracts from the book's effectiveness.

Nothing ruins the first impression of your Web site than poorly designed content or documents haphazardly ported to electronic form. This book isn't an end-all reference to Web-content presentation, but it certainly offers some useful tips for writing effectively for cyberspace. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered:

• On-screen text
• Web-site structure
• Content organization
• Writing style guidelines
• Web text editing
• Corporate content
• Resumes
• Personal pages
• Marketing

Review

...offers novice and professional Web authors sound advice on writing and editing Web text for corporate sites and personal pages. -- The Richmond News

...solid, easy-to-follow advice on how to create text that will keep the Web reader interested. -- Peter Wilson, Vancouver Sun

I am glad I read this book before putting up my site. -- Anne Weale, Bookworm on the Internet

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Product Details

• Paperback: 139 pages
• Publisher: Self-Counsel Press; 1st edition (March 31, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1551802074
• ISBN-13: 978-1551802077
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 8.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,181,007 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

92 of 95 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Signs of life for Web writing, September 27, 2000

By	David Walker (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This thin and flatly-written volume will disappoint anyone hoping for a Web writing manifesto. Kilian brings no new research and an unimpressive bunch of case studies. But by making the case once again for caring about Web text, Kilian's book serves a useful purpose.

Many pages of the book are taken up with advice applicable to writing for any medium: understand your reader's viewpoint, use the "active voice", avoid relying on your spell checker. Devotees of that classic writers' how-to manual, Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, will find a startling amount of familiar material. So will devotees of Web usability expert Jakob Nielsen and his Alertbox site. A substantial slice of Kilian's book could well have been gathered off a handful of well-known Web sites.

But Kilian also makes a series of points that have been missed or underemphasised in discussions of Web writing to date:

* The Web demands your writing deliver "joltage". A former chief executive of the Fairfax newspaper group liked to compare the newspaper-reading experience to a warm bath. Web reading, by comparison, is a 30-second shower - get in, get the job done, wake you up, don't hang around. As Kilian puts it: "Computers condition us for high joltage. A 'jolt' is an emotional reward that follows a prescribed action ... We feel deprived if we don't get some sort of jolt at regular intervals, so we go where we hope to find more stimulation which, on the Web, means web sites."

* Beware old-style marketers who see the Web as another opportunity to pump a message at a commercial audience. In most media, the marketer hunts the customer down and delivers a broadcast or printed spiel that can be hard to avoid. On the Web, the customer comes looking for the transaction, with a million other sites a single mouse-click away. Research shows Web users are uncommonly likely to bolt at the sight of an old-style marketing pitch. A very few good Web marketers, on the other hand, already understand that the message of a commercial Web site must rely on a more subtle link with a brand's values.

* The Web suits "response" writing which prompts the user to carry out an activity. In the offline commercial world an entire marketing discipline - direct response copywriting - has evolved to offer users spcific benefits if they carry out particular actions. Indeed, the long-established rules of direct response advertising copywriting often look remarkably like Web writers need to import these direct response lessons, in just the same way that Web interface designers need to understand how to convince users to click on the appropriate screen buttons. "The Web is a culture of impatience," writes Kilian. "Effective appeals offer quick and painlesss ways to respond".

Killian could and should have given his readers more insights on issues like these, rather than recycling better-known guidelines. His book does not deserve whole-hearted recommendation. But it's nice to see Web writing getting some of the attention it deserves.

94 of 102 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great resource - Read it before you start your web page, July 25, 1999

By	[e-mail] (Vancouver, BC) - See all my reviews

Crawford Killian's book is packed with tips on how to structure information for a web page - how to format, how to edit for clarity and brevity - how to use navigation cues and hold reader interest. The section on grammar reviews the basics from a web perspective. He also covers persuasion, editing and marketing your writing, and offers lots of links to illustrate good writing.

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars OK for beginners. Experienced writers: look elsewhere., September 2, 2000

By	Lee Kessler (Schaumburg, IL USA) - See all my reviews

If you're new to Web writing, or to writing generally, you may find Crawford Killian's Writing for the Web useful. Beginners will appreciate the discussion of the major differences between how readers process information online versus in print. And novice writers will benefit from the book's middle section, which focuses on essentials of good writing ("Opt for Strong Verbs over Weak Ones"; "Avoid Cliches"; "Use Simple Sentences"; "Subject-verb disagreements"; etc.). This discussion of writing and editing fundamentals represents more than a third of the book's 137 pages.

As useful as these general writing tips are, they're nothing new to anyone who has read Strunk and White's The Elements of Style or William Zinnser's On Writing Well. Similarly, I think I've learned much more about Web writing by reading non-Web-specific copywriting books. What I was looking for--and didn't get more than a surface treatment of--is a discussion about organizing information on the Web, taking full advantage of the power of hypertext to provide information, and learning more about ways to grab people's attention online.

If you want to write your first Web site and have limited writing experience, this book is a good place to start. You'll get a good overview of the many decisions a Web writer faces, and you'll also pick up a number of good writing tips. But if you're looking to move beyond the basics and develop a dynamically written, marketing-savvy site, look elsewhere for more detailed information.