7.2 Recommended Practices for Digital Writing

Digital Writing Concepts

The ChatGPT language model has stirred up quite a bit of conversation about the opportunities it provides to create marketing content, brainstorm, edit and revise writing, and compose more creative pieces like songs and poetry (OpenAI, 2022). It seems pretty easy to use ChatGPT. You pose the question and then it generates a response based on information from its databases. It is important understand the limitations of ChatGPT when it comes to inaccuracies as well as the more subtle nuances of audience and purpose.

Digital writing skill comes in knowing why one platform is more appropriate for a given message than another or why specific writing strategies might be more effective with a particular audience than others. While it’s easy to post a blog article, you probably know that there are a lot of poorly written blog posts available online that don’t follow best digital writing practices and don’t consider the needs and perspectives of the audience.

This section provides some basic strategies for making sure that your digital writing content is clear.

Digital Text Strategies

1. Put the main idea of the text in your title. Many web genres have titles—blog posts, web pages, some social media ads, and emails. The very first thing that readers look at when deciding whether the information is relevant to them is the title.  Should seem relevant to their needs.
2. Use headings and subheadings. Especially for longer texts, breaking it up into smaller sections with headings and even subheadings can be a very effective way to help readers stay engaged and follow along with the main ideas. .
3. Put the most important information near the beginning.  For shorter social media posts and emails, it’s usually best to lead with your main point in the very first sentence.
4. Keep the language and sentence structure simple. That doesn’t mean that you have to “speak down” to your audience or craft overly simple sentences that are short and choppy.
5. Use hyperlinks. Adding hyperlinks to relevant information is an easy way to clarify information, build credibility, and point readers toward additional resources.
6. Repeat keywords. Repeating certain keywords and phrases that capture the main idea of the text will help readers follow along.
7. Condense information. This is often easier said than done, but many times, writers include unnecessary details and information that could easily be cut and still convey the same overall meaning.
8. Organize information into chunks. While paragraphs in print publications might be fairly long (sometimes up to 10 or more sentences), paragraphs on digital writing platforms are short—around two to five sentences.
9. Use bullets. Another strategy for increasing the readability of your texts is to create bulleted lists where appropriate. Since readers tend to scan long paragraphs, often missing the key information embedded, the bulleted list makes it easier for readers to quickly see all of the key points in a list.
10. Eliminate “be” verbs when possible. Often “be” verbs (am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been) are wordier and less meaningful than alternative verbs and phrases.
11. Write professionally. Writing that demonstrates maturity and an understanding of writing strategies to build your credibility.
12. Engage the audience. Engaging audiences requires a level of author engagement. This is demonstrated by being involved in the conversations with people as they respond to your content, also know as monitoring.

Designing and Writing for Slide Decks

Check out these two resource links, which are considered key primers on the topic of presentation design.

• Garr Reynolds, PresentationZen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery provides a clear, easy-to-read set of tips for cutting through the noise and blather of modern life and reaching an audience through simple, pared-down slides and story-telling:  two techniques that can help you connect with and inspire your audience in an authentic, genuine way.
• Nancy Duarte, Slideology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations looks to the role of presentation software in the visualization of ideas and information. Its goal is to turn you into a “visual thinker,” so you can design presentation graphics that enable your audience to easily and effectively process data—an especially valuable skill for technical presenters who often have to convey complex data in meaningful ways to non-technical audiences.

Attribution & References

Except where otherwise noted, this page is adapted from

Best Practices for Digital Writing In Writing for Digital Media by Cara Miller, CC BY 4.0 and Slides that Convince and Putting it All Together are adapted from 9.3 Designing Your Presentation In Communication Essentials for Business by Suzan Last and Robin L. Potter, CC BY 4.0 . / Selected key elements from from original text and combined for student understanding.

References

OpenAI. (2022, November 30). ChatGPT: Optimizing language models for dialogue.” OpenAI.com. https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/.