Work in progress.

Ward isn't such a bad fella after all.

I hadn't nearly the strong reaction of other people (Amanda and Jess) upon reading Ward's first two chapters. I can definitely say, though, that I liked chapters three and four.

I liked chapter three because it explained a few things to me: first, how to search with a + and -. For years now, I've attempted that, but never butted it right next to the word like this: +pie. Clearly, that is why it never worked for me. Good to know. Also, I had no idea what a "newsgroup" was, even though I've run into them before. I'm glad to know that they have a name, and that it has nothing to do with subscribing to a newspaper online, as I once thought.

Most importantly, I'm glad that chapter four mentioned Jakob Nielsen's research that shows that people read 25% slower from a computer screen and that you should write 50% less text for the medium. I know that we already covered that in Writing for the Web, and I've seen it before in Media Production, but it really is true. I think that people should hang Nielsen's quotation, "nothing is so tiring to the reader as excavating nuggets of meaning from mountains of words" above their computers just to remember.

Maybe if I had, the above sentences would be shorter.

Anyway, writers should never tire of trimming the fat (to use a cliche) from their writing. I know that I don't like to "waste my time" reading something wordy and abstract, so I shouldn't expect my readers to either.

This chapter also reaffirmed that I use too many adverbs for my own good. I'm addicted to clearly, obviously and essentially. Also, discovered that I like to start sentences with subordinate clauses, and that isn't the most direct way to get a point across.

Overall, Ward is definitely growing on me. (See, what did I tell you about adverbs?)

Posted by Julie Young at September 30, 2003 11:57 PM