1. Writing for the web
George Brock
Professor and Head of Journalism
City University London
Wellcome | September 2013

2. ?????
• What’s the difference between writing on
• …the wall
• …paper
• …the web
• …for radio
• There are things that change; but some stuff
doesn’t
• The intriguing thing about writing for the web is
the interplay of new and old

3. “writing for the web”
• The purpose, clarity and force of
the writing is more likely to
determine its persuasiveness
than the medium or the platform

4. What the web changes (1)
• Quantity of information in circulation
• Velocity at which it moves
• Sense that there’s less time to consume it
• Sound and pictures almost as easy as words
• Flow: frictionless peer-to-peer swopping
• Clear sense-making, narrative and ideas will
be more valued as the world generates more
information

5. Quantity, velocity, flow
• In 2008, Google was crawling 1tn web pages; in
2013, the total is 30tn.
• A hour of video footage is uploaded to YouTube
every second.
• During the airing of the Japanese anime film
“Castle in the Sky” in 2011, Twitter counted
25,000 tweets sent per second.
• (See Out of Print: Newspaper, Journalism and the Business of News,
published by Kogan Page
• http://www.koganpage.com/editions/out-of-print/9780749466510)

6. What the web changes (2)
• Our whole relationship – and therefore attitude –
to information…
• Less need to learn by heart or record
• Easier to get to what you want quicker
• Easier to manipulate (neutral or bad sense)
• Greater need for navigation
• Greater need to know what to trust
• Alters the tension between voice and authority
• Text + audio-visual = new storytelling syntax

7. http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/25/4766878/
jeff-bezos-interview-amazon-kindle-hdx

8. Therefore the dilemma is:
• Putting words out there is easier
than ever
• Getting people to take notice is
harder than ever

9. Old truth
• “Writing” is only one part of impact and
effectiveness
• Writing is part of a larger whole: editorial
“personality”
• The tone of a publication is not just the
words
• Also in the mix: layout, typography,
pictures, ratio of words and pictures,
colour – and how these are all blended
and combined.

10. Old tricks for new or old dogs (1)
• Tell it through people
• Tell it in detail that readers can see and
feel
• Tell it in a simple order
• Plain, clear and straight never fails

11. Science/medicine hazards
• Academic journal custom and
practice
• Factual, authoritative = impersonal
• Technical language
• Intellectual arrogance (or…the
reader does the work)

12. Old tricks (2)
• Don’t call a spade a primitive digging implement
• If possible alternate short + long sentences
• Test writing on readers
• Ration sub-clauses
• The verb is the motor of the sentence
• Better: the verb drives the sentence
• Shoot clichés on sight
• Comb, correct, sift, shorten, show-and-tell

13. Form a new habit: interrogate
• The work of others:
– Why does it work?
– How does it work?
• Your work:
– Does it have…
• Voice/attitude
• Tone
• Fluency
• Structure
• Clarity
• Sense of purpose
• Grasp

14. Never be out of reach of
answers to these questions:
•What am I doing?
•Why am I doing it?

15. • @georgeprof
• www.georgebrock.net