Web Surfers on Speed   

...And other misconceptions about writing for the Web.

Even as an online editor, the phrase "writing for the Web" brings whimsical images to mind. I picture a newspaper reporter translating her story into pig Latin. Or feeding it through a transmogrifier, à la Calvin and Hobbes.

Web writing, one of the "must-have" skills of the 21st-century journalist, still mystifies many print and TV reporters, and probably a fair number of online journalists. Some writers have a vague notion that writing should be "more conversational" and "use bullets," but they wouldn't feel confident putting their skills to the test.

The theory that online publishing requires a new kind of newswriting originated with Web site usability experts, who have given us marvelous concepts such as "scannability"--but whose findings are prone to unfortunate interpretations.

For example, usability pioneer Jakob Nielsen told us in 1997 that Web authors should "write no more than 50 percent of the text you would have used in a hardcopy publication," because "people don't want to read a lot of text from computer screens." Nielsen also reported that surfers prefer informal over formal style.

That makes sense if you're talking about commercial or promotional sites--and most of time, the experts were. But good newswriting is already concise and nonacademic. Thus arose two wrong ideas about transporting news to the Web.

The first is that online newswriting demands a more conversational tone than print writing. Thankfully, I've never actually seen a conversational homicide story on a Web site. Just as hard news, features and opinion columns are presented with different voices in print and on air, so should they be online.

The second misconception is that online articles should be brief. That decree is usually followed by a description of the typical Web surfer as a newspaper reader on speed: an impatient fact junkie who won't touch an article that can't be skimmed in 30 seconds. By that reasoning, a story that scrolls more than a few screens or calls for the "Print" command is a catastrophe.

In fact, people surf the Web--and read newspapers and watch TV--in various moods and modes. While at work, they probably do want digestible briefs. But maybe they're open to meatier fare during evening and weekend hours, times when traffic to news sites tends to drop.

Witness the New York Times Sunday Magazine, which routinely boasts cover stories that sneer at 5,000 words. On the Times' Web site, each story is broken into several pages, with the option to view the full text on one page in a printer-friendly format. That's not a misuse of the medium; it's a triumph over eyestrain. Online writers should focus on saying what needs to be said in as many words as necessary--a luxury and a challenge--and let the experts decide how to present it.

Foremost, good Web writing is newswriting 101. Put the important stuff at the top. Avoid long paragraphs and pretentious words. Remember to run spell check.

Next, there are practices that accommodate new publishing platforms--and vary from site to site. For example, some new-media newsrooms need multiple versions of each story: a full-length article for the Web site, a paragraph for the e-mail newsletter, a sentence for mobile devices. Pulling out a summary paragraph or sentence is something a Web editor can do, but so could the reporter who wrote the piece.

Also, online style sometimes varies from that of a partner newsroom. While broadcast convention is to use "today," the Web site might favor dates so that archived stories make sense. Guidelines like these should be documented, explained and shared with traditional reporters who write for the Web.

The last lesson is to appreciate information architecture: to write with the expectation that stories will be read by people with moderate interest, scarce time and short attention spans. That's why the usability folks tell us to highlight a few key points with bold text or bullets, treatments that improve information absorption and retention. They also advise splitting longer stories into sections with subheads. This makes it easier for readers to zero in on angles of interest and helps editors add new details in appropriate places.

Regrettably, this is more often theory than reality. If a site can post copy without futzing with format, it usually will. Scannable stories are most common on TV sites (MSNBC.com, for example), which must assemble stories from scripts instead of ready-made print articles.

Clear and interesting stories stay true in any medium. So do the dense and tedious. That should be a relief to reporters nervous about filing for the Web, and a warning to all news organizations that ignore the habits of today's mobile, diverse and discriminating news consumers.