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Writing For The Web
Course Overview
This one- or two-day training course in Writing for the web aims to
provide web content authors and contributors with the fundamental skills and
knowledge to express themselves effectively in the web environment. In
addition to highlighting the distinctive features of web audiences, web
content, web page structure and web writing styles (registers), it also
addresses the practical tensions, trade-offs and workarounds involved in
realising different web writing objectives.
Course Objectives
By the end of this course you should be able to:
- Understand the key issues and decisions involved in writing for the web
- Write website content which is appropriate for and targeted at different types of reader
- Communicate different types of information appropriately on the web
- Order or sequence content to speed readers to their ultimate goals
- Structure information effectively for onsite and offsite readers
- Write modularised content which can be shared, re-used and minimises duplication
- Write web text which helps rather than hinders user navigation
- Write texts which are differentiated and help user search
- Write content which lets users access content in the way that suits them best
- Write easily maintainable and revisable content
- Minimise confusion among readers
- Minimise unwanted queries from readers
Target Audience
- Anyone writing for the web, whether on public websites, private intranets, or web application interfaces.
- Copywriters
- Journalists
- Marketing and communications professionals
- Public relations (PR) staff
- Web designers
Course Prerequisites
- A reasonably good command of written English is expected
- Technical knowledge of HTML, XHTML, CSS and other web standards is not required
- Essential, content-related, aspects of these standards (e.g. document structure, metadata, separation of content from presentation, etc) will be covered in the course.
Course Delivery
The one-day version of this instructor-led course in writing for the
web is quite intensive. Exercise sessions examine good and bad practice
on public websites. While the scope for hands-on writing exercises is greater
on the two-day version of this course (available as a closed-company course only), the one-day course typically provides a good
opportunity to practice the skills covered and receive constructive feedback
from the trainer.
Publicly scheduled dates, locations, and prices
Central London — £375 (+VAT)
- 20 May 2008
- 22 Jul 2008
- 23 Sep 2008
- 25 Nov 2008
Writing For The Web: Course Contents
Overview
- Common objectives, issues and constraints
- Target audience(s)
- Interactivity
- Web standards and conventions
- Statutory and contractual requirements
- Hypertext
- Metadata
- Navigation
- Document structure
Web Audiences
- Differences between Web and Print/Broadcast
- Reading versus skimming versus scanning
- The need to locate and navigate
- Expectations and preferences
- Control, interactivity and feedback
- The reading context: work, home, travelling
- Different Web Audiences
- Visitors versus searchers: onsite versus offsite readers
- Abilities and disabilities
- Focus, inclusivity and exclusivity
- Linguistic differences
- Age differences
- Cultural differences
- Physical differences
- Levels of knowledge, experience and expertise (specialist or general)
Labelling, Headings, Titles and Summaries
- Support for scanning
- Support selection
- Vocabulary
- Brevity
- Understandability
- Call to action
- Out of context presentation
- In search results
- Indexes and site maps
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Page Copy and Copy Writing
- Page Structure
- Order: The Inverted Pyramid
- Discursive style
- Plain English
- Vocabularly
- Sentence structure
- Paragraphs
- Keyword placement
- When to use links
- Where to place links
- How to label links
Proofreading, Editing and Editors
- Responsibility and accountability
- Style guidelines and consistency
- Lean text and copy writing expertise
- Grammar and spelling
- ‘Webifying’ offline documents
- Selecting content
- Sub-editing headings, labels, pull-quotes, etc
Metadata
- Why metadata matters
- Finding appropriate content
- Selecting from similar content
- Organising, ordering and indexing content
- Re-presenting information in different contexts
- The different forms of metadata in a web page
- Metadata describing the whole page’s subject matter
- Page structure and structual markup as metadata
- Metadata applying to single page components, e.g. headings, links, images, tables, etc.
- General metadata standards
- HTML, XHTML and XML metadata
- W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
- Dublin Core
- Specialist metadata standards: some public sector examples
- e-GIF and the e-Government Metadata Standard (e-GMS)
- Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary (IPSV)
- Esd-Standards controlled lists
- Local Authority Websites National Project (LAWs)
- Practical exercises
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Publicly Scheduled Training Locations
We currently run public training courses in the following locations:
- London, UK
- Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK
- Birmingham, West Midlands, UK
- Carshalton, Surrey, UK
- Chester, North West, UK
- Coventry, West Midlands, UK
- Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
- Glasgow, Scotland, UK
- Harwell, Oxfordshire, UK
- Manchester, North West, UK
- Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, UK
- Newark, Nottinghamshire, UK
- Reading, Berkshire, UK
- Slough, Berkshire, UK
- Stevenage, Hertfordshire, UK
- Wakefield, West Yorkshire, UK
- Wokingham, Berkshire, UK
Most UK public training courses are available on a monthly basis.
Please see the individual course outlines or our public
training schedule
for details.
In-house (on-site) training locations
We deliver in-house courses at client premises and/or training facilities in
any part of the world which is practically and commercially accessible.
Our In-house training guidelines
outline our basic requirements and our UK pricing structure. To estimate costs
for training in other countries, simply convert to your local currency and then
make a rough calculation of our tutor's costs for travelling to and staying at
your location.
Web Standards Compliance
A good way of assessing the quality of website design training, is to find
out whether or not the training company's own web site complies with web
standards. Ours does.
Every website which adheres to these W3C standards makes the web a little
more useful and a little easier to use. Conversely, every site which breaks
them not only irritates potential customers, but also undermines the
interoperability upon which the basic functions of the web depend.
If you ever find a non-compliant page on our site, please let us know. It's
most likely to be the result of a momentary lapse in concentration (e.g. markup
typos) and will be fixed immediately.
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