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eyetext guidance for authors |
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Reading from a computer screen is different to reading from a book; the advice below is to help authors produce monographs that are easily read and absorbed |
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Writing for eyetext: methods and style.
The internet is a dynamic medium, and changes can be made easily
and quickly, allowing eyetext authors to make sure they are always
associated with a leading edge work. eyetext's new online editing
system allows authors, editors, proofreaders and curators to edit
their monographs via Internet Explorer or other web browsers.
Note: an excellent way of getting guidance for your monograph style and appearance
is to look in the monographs
main page for the monographs that are highest rated (for images, content and
style) by eyetext readers.
A monograph may be put on the site, edited, reviewed and collaborated upon before
it is approved and made available to the rest of eyetext's users. This access
control is all delivered by eyetext.net's highly sophisticated login system, and
does not require any extra passwords. Please see the instructions for using the
editing system which are contained withing the monograph
editing system
Target readership
Articles should contain good information written in straightforward
prose, with more general topics discussed as one would to a first
year trainee. Subspecialist topics should be written as one would
explain to an ophthalmologist without experience in that particular
field.
Writing for the web
There are excellent resources on this topic available just one
click away. Please take the time to read at least one of these
articles before finalising your eyetext monograph.
Jakob Nielsen - one of the web's most prominent and controversial
useability gurus: "Be
Succinct (Writing for the Web)". Note that some of what he
says does not apply to academic audiences.
Check out this
article for a slightly different, more circumspect, opinion
which mentions writing for a professional or academic web audience.
Amy Gahran - read an interview with her about web writing here.
Her major points are:
1. No matter what you're writing, never bury your "lead." Web
users are notoriously fickle. Don't make people wade through a
bunch of background to eventually arrive at your point.
2. "Tight" writing usually is a great advantage. At the same time,
however, be sensitive to tone and flow. Don't edit so tightly
that it becomes choppy and abrupt -- which ends up interfering
with readability.
3. Take advantage of the structural opportunities that hypertext
offers you as a writer -- but don't get carried away with it.
You can break pieces of the document off to separate sub-pages
as warranted, or make connections to other pages on the site (or
outside the site) to add context or otherwise aid the reader.
4. It's important to understand where redundancy in Web content
is and is not OK. If a text-based work is divided onto multiple
pages, any one of which theoretically could be accessed first,
you may well have to repeat some information on more than one
page, just so you don't force your readers to jump around too
much and lose their place. However, if you have too much redundancy,
that will frustrate and confuse readers too. Again, this is a
fine line to draw.
Last but not least, if you would like to read more there is a large list of available
resources on the topic of Web authorship at the Excite
Web Style Guide
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