Web Writing for the Public
Created by Brandon Locke
Writing for the Public
- Try to find a central question and organize your writing around it; let it drive your narrative
- Try to find new angles on ideas that were already of interest to people
- Don’t feel the need to find one tiny piece of history that nobody has ever discussed
- See what others are writing and what non-historian audiences may see or already know
- Steer clear of topics that are oversaturated
- Clear and concise prose without academic jargon - but don’t feel like you need to “dumb it down”
- Use active verbs, vary sentence length, make subjects of your sentences characters
- Try to tell a story
- Use a few characters to tell the story and demonstrate larger historical trends
- Early on, create a mystery or emotional connection so they want to keep reading
- Honor chronology whenever possible
- Give people a stake in the story and make them want to continue
- Provide forward movement, anticipation; give the feeling that you’re going someplace
- Don’t leave out or bury the personal or interesting details
- Don’t feel like you must demonstrate your deep knowledge of the historiography — just use historiography to highlight different interpretations and arguments
- Reflect on writing you’ve liked and think about what makes it compelling
- Contextualize and add explanations for things people may not be familiar with
- Have non-historians/non-academics read a draft and share their thoughts with you
- Try putting your writing into Hemingway App to highlight confusing sentences, overly complicated words, passive voice, etc.
Sources & Further Reading
- McGuire, Danielle, Andrew Miller, and T.J. Stiles. Writing History for a Popular Audience: A Round Table Discussion
- Trubek, Anne. 5 Lessons on Writing for the Public
- Salierno Mason, Alane. 10 Tips for Academics Writing for a General Audience
- Covart, Liz. Writing History for the Public
Writing on the Web
Photo: Heatmap of web users made with eye tracking software. Photo from Stanford IT
- Use well-structured headings and subheads to organize, signpost, and break up the text
- Try to use shorter sentences and paragraphs; don’t indent paragraphs
- Use bullet points and numbered lists when possible
- Use photos and visual aids whenever possible
- Either use brackets ( [1] ) for footnotes or use brief parenthetical citations; should have a consistent style for an entire website or project
- Use white space to prevent readers from being overwhelmed
- Make sure you’re following fair use and are not violating copyright. We have a Fair Use Guide available.
Accessibility Tips
- Add “alt text” to photos with a concise description of the content of the photo
- Make sure headings are nested and do not skip numbers
- Make sure that hyperlinked text provides clear context for the link
- Ex: “Visit LEADR’s teaching resources for more info” rather than “LEADR teaching resources are here”.
- Don’t make the text content space too wide or it can be difficult to read
- Use colors that contrast well so that low vision or colorblind readers do not have trouble
- Have transcripts or captions for all audio and video media
- The WebAIM Introduction to Accessibility has a great overview