All blogs, in fact all web sites have certain factors in common. By far the most important is effectual communication. What you are trying to relate may be visual, auditory or the written word. Communicating with the written word is without a doubt the most prevalent. The following poem – a long time favorite of mine – expresses the difficulty of putting into words what we mean to say.
Useless Words
So long as we speak the same language and never understand each other,
So long as the spirals of our words snarl and interlock
And clutch each other with irreckonable gutturals
Well…
Carl Sandburg
Read the following paragraph:
For the sake of this article, assume that your readers come to your blog for instruction. It may be a recipe, a snip of code, how to stop your neighbor’s damned dog from digging under the fence, when to seek legal advice or the most effective dog repellent.
Now, read this, again thinking in terms of your readers seeking instruction for a given thing. It may be:
- A recipe
- A snipe of code
- The contemptible neighbor’s mutt
- When to seek legal advice
- Effective dog repellent
Sometimes we overlook the most obvious aspects of writing, especially for online publication.
The object is to get to the core of meaning as quickly and effectively as possible. A list, either numbered or bulleted will do exactly that. You wouldn’t go to the grocery with a paragraph of things you need. Neither should you give written instruction with a paragraph when a list will communicate it better.
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Very true-At work I often rewrite instructional memos to make them concise so others will read and follow.
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