Hot Text: Web Writing That Works

Chapter 9. Idea #5: Reduce Cognitive Burdens!

Reduce the Number of Clauses Per Sentence

Blow Up Nominalizations and Noun Trains

Watch Out for Ambiguous Phrases a Reader Must Puzzle Over

Surface the Agent and Action, so Users Don't Have to Guess Who Does What

Make a Positive Statement, so People Understand Right Away—without Having to Unpack a Nest of Negatives

Reduce Scrolling

Let Users Print or Save the Entire Document at Once, to Avoid Reading Any More On-screen

Reduce the Number of Clauses Per Sentence

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Move or remove that, who, and which clauses ...