Writing for the Web

This practical book gives great specific guidelines in an easily-understood and instantly usable way. I applied a couple of principles from the first chapter immediately to my writing. The examples are well-done, and very clear. Any how-to book that can be immediately be used within hours of its purchase is well worth the price. A CD-Rom is included with exercises and examples, and the book itself has exercises. Very practical - great job!

Writing For The Web: Geeks' Edition is specifically designed for those who aspire to utilize the Internet as an outlet for their writing. Internet veteran Crawford Kilian draws upon his years of experience and expertise to provide the reader with a convenient, easy-to-use Webwriter's style guide that will prove invaluable for dealing with the rules governing abbreviations, biased terms, capitalization, compound words, and cliches. The proffered exercises will develop webwriting techniques and a wealth of practical advice will enable the aspiring webwriter to adapt content from print to Webtext; avoid common grammar and usage errors; develop content for corporate websites; even edit material for an international audience. Whether writing for a personal or corporate website, or writing for an on-line publication, Writing For The Web will enable anyone to be an effective Internet wordsmith.

Writing for the Web written by Crawford Kilian will assist Web developers and Website content providers to craft better Web communication that will attract the attention of the Websurfing public and increase the likelihood of producing more favorable results. Readers will learn that the Internet has produced different demands in publishing. While cool Web graphics, video clips, sounds, and creative HTML programming may have their place in Web development, Kilian believes that the content of HTML - plain text, has been geatly overlooked. He points out that the real purpose of publishing on the Web is to publish text to communicate. Other elements of Website design serve primarily as decorations and have clouded the true purpose of Web publishing. They can also become distracting and actually inhibit Web content comprehension. Kilian encourages his readers to use the Web for a variety of purposes such as publishing e-zines and finding employment and he shows readers how they can create Web content that will get attention. His emphasis is clearly placed on composing and displaying text. Readers will learn the importance of targeting their specific audiences, how to determine content subject matter, how to structure and display content for maximum visual impact, how to compose effective sentences, choosing the right wording, and selecting appropriate font styles. This book is a concise guide to Web writing that will provide readers with ideas and encouragement to advance their own literary pursuits. Sample content, writing resources, and the focus on textual content make this book a good choice to jumpstart a Web-writing career - perhaps yours! Highly recommended!

A couple of decades ago I spent a year being rough-handled by two punitive and pedantic professors of freshman English composition. The was experience was painful enough that, although I have written a lot in the intervening years, I had not picked up a "how to write" book until this one.I had been having some trouble getting a web site I was doing to read "just right", and this book came up as a possible source of help. It was - and in many respects. It gave me not just ideas for the site I had problems with, but also things that I'll take to other sites I wrote and still maintain.It's great to see a professorial ego that permits the author to provide so many links to other people's stuff! And it's also useful to see a recommendation about how to cite a web site in scholarly writing.I filled my copy with marginal notes, highlighting, underlining, and sticky notes, and turned down about a third of the pages for future reference. It's that good.

Crawford Killian's book is packed with tips on how to structure information for a web page - how to format, how to edit for clarity and brevity - how to use navigation cues and hold reader interest. The section on grammar reviews the basics from a web perspective. He also covers persuasion, editing and marketing your writing, and offers lots of links to illustrate good writing.