You can distill the four parts of this series on writing for the web to one word: audience. Part 1 of this series looks at analyzing your audience in the planning stage of writing, part 2 asks you to look at whether your draft addresses your audience's concerns, this part looks at elevating those concerns for your audience with a powerful style, and in the next post part 4 offers tips for making every word matter to your audience. Audience, audience, audience, audience—just in case I didn't say it enough.
How do we heighten our audience's concerns? By bringing the key point to the top of the message. Let's look at a well written example from "Investing in 2020: A Year to Be Selective," which I accessed today from the website of investment banking giant Morgan Stanley:
Placing that short first sentence at the end of the paragraph would make it appear amateurish and melodramatic. We read online looking for the key points upfront.
Perhaps delaying the point works well in fiction writing, where suspenseful writing leads to page-turning, engaging reading. Here's a self-written fictitious example of placing the key point at the end of a paragraph for humorous effect:
How do we heighten our audience's concerns? By bringing the key point to the top of the message. Let's look at a well written example from "Investing in 2020: A Year to Be Selective," which I accessed today from the website of investment banking giant Morgan Stanley:
What a difference a year can make. At this time in 2019, major U.S. stock indices had logged their worst yearly performance in a decade. While the start of 2019 may have felt rocky, investors ultimately witnessed a remarkable year. The S&P 500, the broad U.S. stock market benchmark, rose more than 30% and now sits at or near all-time highs, while the main bond benchmark, the Barclay's Capital U.S. Aggregate Index, gained around 9%—both up three times their long-term annual averages.The first sentence, only seven words, is the key point of this paragraph. The second sentence starts by pointing to the bad year of 2018 without mentioning it, and by placing this information in a clause beginning with while to minimize its value in contrast with what follows it, namely the good news of a remarkable year. The third sentence gives the supporting data, concluding a powerfully focused and articulate paragraph.
Placing that short first sentence at the end of the paragraph would make it appear amateurish and melodramatic. We read online looking for the key points upfront.
Perhaps delaying the point works well in fiction writing, where suspenseful writing leads to page-turning, engaging reading. Here's a self-written fictitious example of placing the key point at the end of a paragraph for humorous effect:
This morning I woke up remembering I had not checked the mailbox the night before. Since it was still dark, I thought it was all right to step out into the cold winter air in my underwear, as the mailbox is only five feet from my front door. There I found only one item, a letter from the IRS demanding an audit of my tax returns for the past five years. Trembling, as much from the letter as from the Arctic temperatures, I then realized I had locked myself out of the house. I began knocking, and then banging, on the door for my sleeping wife to wake up and rescue me. No response. Except for a stray dog that leaped on me and bit my thigh before running off in the darkness. At this point I was shivering and screaming in pain while banging on the front door. Within seconds a police officer pulled up his car on my driveway and handcuffed me, half-naked, frost-bitten, and bleeding, unwilling to listen to my raving about accidentally locking myself out of my own house as he shoved me headfirst into the patrol car before whisking me off to the police station. I am having a bad day.That last six-word sentence is an amusing understatement, but it is an example of the kind of writing you'd be better off avoiding if you were writing for the web.
