Writing on Paper vs. Writing on the Web

Writing on the Web is a lot different than writing on paper, but there are similarities between the two types of writing. For any type of writing, it is important to analyze your audience and purpose. The only way to write an effective piece is to make sure your writing is appropriate for your audience and purpose. The differences between writing on the Web and on paper come from the large differences in the audience and purpose for these two types of writing.

When readers are reading something on the Web, they tend to do more skimming rather than reading straight through an entire document. Knowing the reading style of the audience is important in determining how to structure the writing. Because readers rarely read everything on the page, it is important to put the main idea first in order to make sure your readers have not already stopped reading before they get to the most important parts. The book refers to this method as the inverted-pyramid method.

When I am reading information on the Web I know I tend to overlook things if I see large chunks of information presented at once. If the same amount of information was presented as several short paragraphs, I would be much more likely to read the information. Organization is very important when writing something on the Web. The layout should be easy to follow, and there should be many headings and subheadings. When there are headings, readers can see what to expect in the following text. Unlike reading something on paper, reading on the Web tends to be a lot less sequential. Readers scan for the information for which they are looking, and headings make it easy to do this. Also, the Web has the ability to include hyperlinks, which written text obviously cannot do. Knowing that readers may not read a lot of information on a page, a writer can give links to related pages. If a reader if looking for more information, he or she can follow the link.

The biggest differences in writing on the Web and on paper come from the layout and organization of the writing. When transferring a previously written document to the Web, it is important to adjust the layout to make it easily read on the Web. This can be done by making smaller paragraphs and including headings and subheadings. Also, writing on the Web should show separate parapraphs by putting a blank line in between them, while writing on paper would have indented paragraphs. Any changes made to a document that is posted on the Web should be properly noted, and it is important to gain permission from the author before posting a document on the Web.