Writing and Editing for the Internet

By D. J. McAdam

According to Duke Ellington, there are only two kinds of music: good, and bad.  Much the same may be said about writing.  Thus, while this article will focus on writing and editing issues as they specifically relate to internet publications, one should bear in mind that the similarities between writing for the web and writing for other forms of media far outweigh the differences.  To put the matter as plainly as possible, bad writing is still bad writing, regardless of where it appears.  Conversely, a compelling story, well told, will be as welcomed by internet readers as by any other type of reader.

 

Instant Publication

Much of the material that appears on the internet is self-published.  This means that, in many cases, a web article is written, edited, and then published by the same individual.  There is a positive aspect to this, in terms of both spontaneity and immediacy.  One writes an article, pushes a button, and it is instantly there for the world to read. 

A personal example may be used to illustrate this point.  Shortly after the “Most Wanted” playing card deck was distributed to American soldiers in Iraq, a number of decks began appearing on the internet auction site eBay.  Bidding was enthusiastic, and I recall at least one deck being won for a bid in excess of $200.  The problem was that the decks being offered were not, in most cases, the same decks that had been distributed to combat troops.  Images for the decks were available free of charge from a United States government website, and unscrupulous sellers had simply taken these images, printed their own decks, and then sold them as genuine.

Realizing what was happening, I wrote a brief article on what was occurring and immediately published it on one of the websites that I manage.  The article received a wide readership, and within a week I was interviewed by a correspondent from BBC World on the matter.  While the attention was gratifying, I was pleased more with the idea that my work had prevented at least some portion of the buying public from being misled.

That is the positive side.  The negative aspect of acting as a sort of literary judge-jury-executioner is that one runs the risk of exposing to a worldwide readership written works that would have significantly benefited from a day or two of sober reflection and critical review.  The result is, far too often, disorganized writing in which words are misspelled, syntax is ignored, and – in the worst cases – information is divulged which should have remained private.

 

Appropriate Content for the Internet

When writing for intended publication in a particular magazine or newspaper, one usually has a fairly clear idea of the composition of the readership for that publication.  In 1994, to take one example, I wrote an article for P.I. Magazine.  My audience – professional private investigators working in the United States - was clearly defined before I sat down to write the first sentence. 

This is most emphatically not the case with writing published on the internet.  The words that one writes will be read by persons in a variety of countries.  (It is called the World Wide Web.)  These individuals will often have cultural backgrounds significantly different from that of the author, and will hold different religious beliefs, which should be respected.  They will also be unfamiliar with Americanisms, which should be omitted or explained. 

Perhaps more daunting than having one’s words read by strangers in foreign lands is the very real prospect of having them scrutinized by those closer to home.  When a person publishes his or her viewpoints and opinions on the internet, he or she is sharing them with a readership that not only contains total strangers but that may also include his or her spouse, boss, co-workers, and nine-year-old neighbor next door. 

Given the vast diversity of internet readership, certain standards regarding appropriate content present themselves.  Most obviously, one should avoid writing about (or, within the scope of an article, making offhand comments about) topics in a manner that others would find hurtful or offensive, or that would place the author in a bad light. 

One must also guard against giving out too much personal information.  Most people by now know that it is unwise to publish a document on the internet that displays a social security number, but I still see a large number of websites where someone has proudly displayed details of his or her family history, including his or her mother’s maiden name.  In the case of businesses, an effort must be made to safeguard against the possibility of giving out information that could prove helpful to competitors.

Misleading and inaccurate information is to be avoided.  Despite legal disclaimers on many websites stating that the owner of the site bears no responsibility for the accuracy of the information presented, there still exists the inescapable fact that readers may act upon what they read, with potentially dire consequences.  This is particularly true with subjects related to medical, legal, or financial advice, but extends into other areas.  Along these same lines, it is important to avoid making statements that could be construed as slandering the good name or reputation of an individual or business, unless one wishes to find oneself in civil court. 

Material that is copyrighted by others should not be published without express written consent.  This seems obvious, but I am including it here as a result of personal experience that would indicate otherwise.  One of my articles has been plagiarized twice on the internet.  On the first occasion, a law student simply changed the byline to state that he was the author of the article, a circumstance I found to be particularly irritating in light of the fact that the article was written in the first person and included an account of my (now co-opted) personal experiences.  A few years later, I found the same article appearing without my consent on a website maintained by a lawyer, who had no relation to the first plagiarizer.  The best that can be said about the second perpetrator is that he did, at least, provide correct attribution.

Having offered an overview of material that should not appear on the internet, it seems appropriate to quickly discuss material that is appropriate for publication.  One is tempted to paraphrase Henry James’ famous remark about the novel, that the only requirement is that it be interesting, but of course James never answered the question, “Interesting to whom?”  Practically speaking, one may write about any subject which he or she wishes to, so long as the above guidelines are borne in mind.  Remember, too, that even the dullest subjects can become intriguing in the hands of a writer with a strong command of proper literary construction, style, and usage.

 

Is There an “Internet Style?”

Unless one is willing to agree that the Times of London and the New York Post both share a common “newspaper style,” or that the New England Journal of Medicine and Cosmopolitan both share a “magazine style,” then one must accept the fact that there really exists no such thing as an “internet style.”   The style of writing appropriate for internet publications is entirely dependent upon the content of the writing and upon the context of the website in which it appears.  Regardless of the medium in which it is presented, no reader will gladly accept a breezy, snappy, lighthearted look at a promising new cancer treatment. 

There are, however, significant formatting options specific to the media.  The irony here is that most of these options should be used sparingly, if at all.  Unlike the printed page, for example, website words can be made to blink on and off.  Blinking words were common in the internet’s infancy, when people were anxious to try out all the new and different things that could be done, but they are much less frequently encountered now, for the simple reason that blinking words are generally annoying.

Taking the matter further, there are internet users with certain disabilities for whom blinking words are worse than annoying, which is why the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines[i] recommend, among other things, that users should have the ability to pause or stop blinking text.  Anyone involved in writing, editing or publishing internet documents should familiarize himself or herself with these guidelines and strive to incorporate their suggestions into his or her finished works. 

The ability to create a hypertext link within a document does offer internet writers a significant opportunity to direct readers easily and quickly to pertinent sources of information.  The only caution here is to avoid over-use.  We have all encountered articles on the internet where it seemed that every sixth word was linked to another page, which does nothing to improve readability.  If one is responsible for the maintenance of an internet document as well as the creation of one, another concern here is that of periodically checking for “dead links,” i.e., hypertext links to pages that no longer exist. 

 

Resources for Internet Writers

There are a great number of online resources for writers, but none should be considered an acceptable substitute for a core group of reference works handy to one’s working area. 

A dicitionary, of course, is essential to any writer.  I am aware that there are dictionaries available on the internet, but from a strictly practical point of view I find them difficult to work with, and so keep a standard printed dictionary within easy reach of my desk.  A thesaurus is available from within Microsoft Word; whether this is better than or equal in quality to a printed thesaurus is a matter upon which I can offer no intelligent opinion, as I do not use the Microsoft thesaurus, and am unlikely to do so in the future.  (This isn't out of disrespect toward Microsoft, but simply because, as in the case with dictionaries, I prefer the ergonomic ease of the printed book.)

With respect to matters such as grammar and punctuation, I rely upon two books: Margaret Shertzer’s The Elements of Grammar[ii] and Joseph Gibaldi’s MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers ( Sixth Edition)[iii].  The latter work has a streamlined format which I find particularly useful, and also includes an entire section on citing electronic publications.

Finally, ending on the same note where we began, there should be an attempt on the internet author’s part to ensure that his or her writing is simply “good writing.”  As a general guide to structure and usage, I would recommend William Zinsser’s On Writing Well[iv].  It sometimes does not occur to internet authors that most of them are, indeed, writing nonfiction for publication, and so are coping with the same problems and issues that other nonfiction writers have struggled with for years.  Zinsser’s book does an excellent job of identifying and resolving these issues.

 

Bibliographic Citation of Internet Articles

In selecting an appropriate format for citing articles found on the Internet (or, more accurately, on the World Wide Web, which is a component of the Internet), the primary rule is to be consistent.  For instance, if one is utilizing rules of citation in Gibaldi's Handbook for other reference sources, one should utilize that author's recommendations for World Wide Web citations as well. 

To give an example, if you were to provide a bibliographic citation of this article, (and assuming I haven't changed the date of this article without also correcting this example), the citation would look like this:

    McAdam, D. J.  "Writing and Editing for the Internet."  23 Jun., 2006.  http://www.djmcadam.com/writing-for-internet.html (24 Jun. 2006). 

In the above example, note that the first date given is the date of publication.  In many cases, you will not have this information.  The second date, which appears at the end of the citation in parentheses, is the actual date that you accessed the webpage. 

Here's another example - in this one, we are citing a webpage that is part of a larger work, and we are including a hyperlink:

Allen, James.  "The Acquirement of Spiritual Power."  The Way of Peace.  2005.  http://www.worldspirituality.org/spiritual-power.html (24 Jun. 2006)

For simplicity's sake, I've not included information about the editor of this piece.  If you're wondering how I knew that this was a part of a larger work, you'll have to go to the page in question and hit the "Up" button toward the bottom of the page.  Such information is not always readily apparent in the world of virtual documents.

 

Conclusion

Writing for the internet, like any form of writing, can be challenging.  It can also be immensely rewarding.  Each person with a website has, in effect, his or her own little printing press, a democracy lover’s dream come true.  My hope is that we will put forth the effort to make the best possible use of this medium by writing and publishing internet articles that are thoughtful, balanced, and well-presented.  Our readers deserve no less.