Transcript Document

Presented to the Art Institute Of Houston
Making Words Work
On the Web
© 2013 by Grady McAllister
http://vasthead.com
[email protected]
713-944-2636
7/18/2015
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A world that craves
attention
 iPhones vs. Shakespeare
 Billboards that flash brightly
and constantly change
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A world that craves
attention
 TV & Radio in odd places
 Radio Gasolina?
 Ads lost in space?
 Strange things in the mail
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Formula in a bottle
“THIS YEAR’S ADDY AWARDS. WE’RE
GOING TO FEED YOU A WHOLE NEW
FORMULA. This year, were are putting on
a presentation that is also a party. A
banquet that doubles as a buffet. A gala
that’s uptown but that knows how to get
down. This year’s ADDY Awards offers
something for everybody—except
crybabies. So be a good kid and order
your tickets soon.”
Birth of a Web Site
 You just gave birth to a web
site that is also crying for
attention
 What can you do to be heard in
a world that already demands
attention everywhere you
turn?
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How to enter the
writing process
 Realize that don’t have to be a
professional writer
 Don’t worry if the writing looks
messy at first
 Just get your ideas down
before you forget them
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Three questions to keep
in mind while you write
 “Why am I writing this?”
 “Who is my intended reader?”
 “What do I want to say?”
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After you finish writing
ask these questions:
 “Are these the points I want to
make?”
 “Do I believe what I said?”
 “Did I forget something?”
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After you finish writing
ask these questions:
 “Are any of the points fuzzy?”
 “What did I say that I could
leave out”
 “Does this sound like me?”
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More things to keep in
mind
 Avoid jargon
 Avoid filler words
 Write at 6th grade reading
 Work hard to make your work
seem easy
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SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY,
SIMPLIFY
 You impress people
with the clarity of
your thoughts, not
the complexity of
your words.
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ACCURACY, ACCURACY,
ACCURACY
 “The child, who was
reportedly large for her
size and tall enough to
ride under earlier rules,
was with a brother who
the grandfather said
was her twin.”
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ACCURACY, ACCURACY,
ACCURACY
 “The club's security guard
was escorting four patrons
out of the club when they
began trying to fight off
him off and tried to reach
for his gun, the security
guard told deputies who
<what?> at the scene.”
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The joy of proofreading
Use your
spell checker!
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The joy of proofreading
Don’t trust
your spell
checker!
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The joy of proofreading
 “You” when you meant to type
“your”
 Or worse, “Your” when you
meant to type “You’re”
 Check the length of your
sentences and paragraphs
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The rewrite is
everything
Make every
word you
write do
new work!
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Checking for redundancy
 “Two of three Elyria triplets who
posed for Playboy were taken into
custody and charged with assault
after allegedly getting into a fight
at a strip club early Saturday
morning. After reviewing
surveillance video, police said
Vicki Satterfield, 28, of Elyria,
appeared to start a fight in a
dressing room of the Brass Pole.”
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Checking for redundancy
 “The video shows the manager
of the Brass Pole, Melissa
Anderson, attempting to
remove Vicki and her sister
Sarah, also 28, of Elyria, from
the establishment, to which
they responded by attacking
Anderson, according to police.”
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Taking your writing to
higher ground
 “A work that aspires,
however humbly, to the
condition of art should
carry its justification in
every line.”
—Joseph Conrad
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Ask yourself:
 What can be cut out?
 What should be added to make
myself more clear?
 What ideas are repeated too
much?
 Are there long words where
short words would do the job
better?
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How to corrupt language
From George Orwell's
“Politics And The English Language“
“I returned and saw under the sun,
that the race is not to the swift, nor
the battle to the strong, neither yet
bread to the wise, nor yet riches to
men of understanding, nor yet
favour to men of skill; but time and
chance happeneth to them all.”
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How to corrupt language
Orwell’s rewrite in modern English:
“Objective considerations of
contemporary phenomena compel
the conclusion that success or
failure in competitive activities
exhibits no tendency to be
commensurate with innate capacity,
but that a considerable element of
the unpredictable must invariably
be taken into account.”
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From a university
seminar hand-out…
 “Put everything trainees must
know to complete the web
training in writing and use all
visual elements to facilitate
comprehension or navigation.”
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A re-write, according to
me…
“Give clear instructions on how
to complete the training. Use
images to signal how to move
through the material. Visuals
can also reinforce learning.”
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Use the active voice
Strunk & White:
“The active voice is
usually more direct
and vigorous than
the passive…”
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Use the active voice
 Active: “I remember my first
trip to Austin.”
 Passive: “My first trip to Austin
is remember by me.”
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Use the active voice
 The passive voice makes you
sound vague or indecisive: “An
attempt could be made by
me.”
 Active voice example: “I’ll take
care of it right away.”
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Use the active voice
 The passive voice makes it
sound like no one is
responsible: “Mistakes were
made.”
 Active voice example: “I blew
that deal, and I promise I’ll do
better next time.”
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Use the active voice
 Passive voice makes you seem
remote and disinterested: “An
answer was given.”
 Active voice example: “I gave
her the answer as soon as she
arrived.”
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Use the active voice
Henry David Thoreau:
“I went to the woods because I
wished to live deliberately, to
front only the essential facts of
life, and see if I could not learn
what it had to teach, and not,
when I came to die, discover
that I had not lived.”
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Use the active voice
William Zinsser’s rewrite:
“A decision was made to go into
the woods because of a desire for a
deliberate existence and for
exposure to only the essential facts
of life and for possible instruction in
its educational elements, and
because of a concern that at the
time of my death the absence of a
meaningful prior experience would
be apprehended.”
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By this time…
 Sometimes repetition is good
because it drives home a point
 “I have a dream…”
 An ancient rhetorical device
 Usually repeated three times
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What a way to go-go
“Come with me now mentally
to the go-go era of Houston
radio. Think of 1966 as a way
station between the British
music invasion days of 19641965 and the psychedelic daze
of 1967-1969. If you were to
pick one year to stand for the
entire decade, 1966 might be
it.”
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What a way to go-go
“By this time, we knew that we
were deep into the 60's and
that it was a decade very
different from the 50's. By this
time, we knew that the
Vietnam War would not be a
quick and short one. By this
time, we knew that our own
society was in rapid change
with a future unknown.”
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What a way to go-go
 At the end of August, 1966, I
heard someone say: "Do you
realize that we just finished
the first two-thirds of the
sixties?" Indeed we had, but
the most exciting part of the
decade — for better or worse
— was yet to come.
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Keep on re-writing
 Let’s think about what is yet to
come in your writing. Even if
you think your writing is great,
keep going back over your
material. I can guarantee you
that you will discover…
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What’s next?
 Material which has become
outdated
 Mistakes you overlooked
before
 Ideas for better word choices
 More or better examples to
make your points
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