Why we stopped using ‘please note’

Writing for the web isn’t the same as writing for a brochure or leaflet. When someone lands on your website, the majority of the time they are not sitting down for a leisurely read – they are scanning. They’re picking out key words and phrases, trying to find what they need as quickly as possible. 

Imagine you’re driving past a billboard at 60mph in the car.  You can only take in a limited amount of information and there’s no time to mentally process any complicated wording.  Whilst the window of opportunity for a webpage is not quite so narrow, you need to bear in mind that your readers might be racing through your content rather than reading and digesting every carefully crafted word.

We need to adapt our writing style accordingly.  We don’t want to confuse our readers by using words which are ambiguous, difficult to understand, or which act as obstacles to providing a clear message or straightforward navigation.

With this in mind, we’ve listed below some words that you should avoid using as these reduce the readability of our content.

Formative/summative (usually used with regard to assessments)

These terms appear often on course pages, but they’re not widely understood – especially by younger audiences like high school students (often our target market). If you wouldn’t use these words when chatting to a 16-year-old about how assessments work, don’t use them on a webpage. We need to use words that our target audience are familiar with, and don’t want to baffle or even put off these prospective students.

Most people also overestimate the knowledge and vocabulary of even their professional audiences and sometimes jargon is so ingrained you forget you are using it.

Try simpler alternatives like:

• You’ll be assessed through coursework
• You’ll take a final exam at the end of the module

Equip

This is another word which is often found on our course pages – for example: ‘You will be fully equipped to develop your own career’. However, it can sometimes make it sound as though we want to send our students camping!  This word also tends to be used in the passive tense, which takes a reader longer to analyse (only microseconds, but it all adds up) and increases the word count of a sentence.  Instead, go for a direct, active phrase like:

• ‘you will learn’.

Innovative and state-of-the-art

There are few university courses or departments which would not want to describe themselves as innovative and this is one of the most over-used words we find on our webpages.

If something about your course is genuinely innovative it should sell itself.  It is better to focus on particular features, and crucially, the benefits they provide, rather than using filler adjectives like this. Instead of using these words, try a format like:

• We offer [specific feature], so you can [benefit].

Give your readers the evidence and let them decide.

Very, actually, really, just, and similar adverbs

These don’t add anything to the message of your page but simply reduce the scannability of the text and add unnecessary bloat. If a sentence still makes sense without the adverb, leave it out.

Please note 

This phrase doesn’t mean anything – it’s the text after it that is important.  When readers scan down the left-hand side of the page, they pick out keywords. Compare the following two phrases and see which jumps out at the reader:

• Please note: deadline is 1 July
• Deadline 1 July

Once again, the phrase adds bulk to the page whilst reducing meaning.

Former/latter/above/below/respectively

Since readers will often be scanning the text on our webpages, we need to ensure that this process is as smooth as possible for them.  Words such as ‘former’ and ‘latter’ mean that a reader will need to jump forwards and backwards in the text to understand it which disrupts scanning and increases the time it takes them to process the material.

Click here

Never use ‘click here’ when you are including a web link.  Link text should describe what the reader will find when they click on it.  This makes it easier when someone scans the page.  Example:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, cu essent doctus deserunt per. Vidit nulla homero cu nec. Quas tacimates vituperata ut qui, ex eum nostrud evertitur, quaestio evertitur duo ei. Per ei sale labores, et vim amet corpora, cibo senserit vis et. click here. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, cu essent doctus deserunt per.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, cu essent doctus deserunt per. Vidit nulla homero cu nec. Quas tacimates vituperata ut qui, ex eum nostrud evertitur, quaestio evertitur duo ei. Per ei sale labores, et vim amet corpora, cibo senserit vis et. Please read about our history courses Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, cu essent doctus deserunt per.

Complicated words or phrases when there is a simpler alternative

Simplifying your text will make it easier for your readers to quickly grasp what you mean.  For example:

Website when you mean webpage

We have only one University website.  If you are writing content for a department or centre within the University, please ensure that you refer to this as a ‘webpage’ or ‘webpages’ rather than a separate ‘website’.

Words to use

Just before I wrap up this post, I’d like to briefly mention a couple of words that are to be used when writing for the web.  The English language is rich and powerful, and there are many, many words to choose from, but the two most important words are

‘You’ and ‘we’

‘You’ is the greatest word in the English language when it comes to writing content.  It puts the reader directly at the heart of the action (avoiding the passive voice), can help to simplify complex instructions, and conveys a friendlier tone.  Choosing to use ‘we’ and ‘you’ also avoids the problem of gender-specific writing.

Do you have any thoughts on this?  Are there any words you come across frequently which are your personal bugbears?   Please comment and let us know.