I started today's assignment with a little trepidation. This week we test our writing skills. I have not taken an English class in 12 years and the only thing I remember about the class is the title 'Writing about Buffy the Vampire Slayer' (that's right... don't be jealous). So I began this assignment expecting the worse.
As much as I was dreading this assignment, it could not have come at a better time. I had just added the descriptive text to a couple of our items in our exhibit. I read the Yahoo! Style Guide. The Style Guide has great articles on how to write for web. In the Get to the Point article I began to understand how to write for our exhibit. I rewrote the text and tried to adhear to their 3 points.
1. Keep it short
2. Front-load your content
3. Keep it simple
I know these three ideas sound like common sense, but reading the article helped to focus my writing. I had trouble condensing my research. I dissected the information I had and edited the details that did not contribute to the exhibit content.
After I rewrote my text, I used The Writer's Diet to test my writing. The Writer's Diet is a great tool which allows you to check if your writing is 'Fit or Flabby'? I tested my writing, knowing I would be closer to flabby then fit. Imagine my surprise when I saw my result, "Fit and Trim!" The full diagnosis shows what I did well and what I can do better. I will continue to use the website to test my writing. Especially for our exhibit.
The Writer's Diet works great for blogs. This is the third version of this particular one. This is the fastest a diet has ever taken me from Flabby to Lean!
