writing for the web video transcript

Hello and welcome to Writing for the Web, the video.

I have no attendees at this session - this is just me talking through the deck - but we'll go through it step by step, starting with our icebreaker.

Now the icebreaker is based on the idea of calling a spade a spade, which is a phrase coined by Plutarch more than two thousand years ago talking about simple language and the use of simple language.

So the idea of this icebreaker is that you think about how you describe a spade without using the word spade.

This is what I came up with: "A long-handled, sharpened slab of forged steel used for digging."

And different people come up with different ideas for that.

And it illustrates that there are an infinite number of ways to describe a simple idea.

But the more important point is, if you can use a simple phrase like a spade, use a simple phrase so call a spade a spade.

Man being hit in the face with a shovel.

Oh, that's gonna hurt.

So why are we here?

We're here because we want to get across our message and the University of Derby website is an important tool in telling the world about what we do.

How we tell the world is important and we want to make the user experience as easy as possible.

That is absolutely one of those nailed on things. The most important thing.

I'll say "the most important thing" several times because there are several most important things.

But making the user experience as easy as possible is right up there.

We have brand personality and key messages and what we have here are examples of that.

We want our content to be impactful, snappy, full of energy and potential for the future.

We need to be welcoming and approachable but we also need to express our expertise.

And getting that balance right, that is very much a challenge. 

We want to talk about our research and how important that is and describing that research to people who don't have any history in academia. 

So it's important that we are able to get the message across about our awesome work in the language that they understand.

We do have a general style guide for writing if you're looking for help with that. It gives you an idea of the words you should be using and the way to describe things.

It's under marketing and student recruitment page on the staff ID under professional services.

Now I am a learner who likes to visualise things so I'm just giving you this little word burst so you can take a little picture of it to think about the words:

Welcoming, expertise, future ... Future is a very important word.

Now, this is the most important thing: speaking to your audience.

So knowing who your audience is is absolutely vital when you're producing content.

So, in terms of the University of Derby website, we think about our audience as 15-year-olds when you're talking about potential undergraduate students looking at our content. They are starting to look when they're starting to look at what to do for their A-levels because it may depend on where they're going to go to university.

So we think about 15-year-olds. But also we have pages there are specifically for business owners. But of course we don't necessarily use the same language on the campaigns pages for 15-year-olds as we do for the pages for business owners in our business services section. We do what we say is flex our tone when we're writing our content for those two different areas.

But of course a 15-year-old may end up on the business services page because they may want to find out who we are in partnership with - which businesses they may be able to get an internship or a placement at - so they will go to those pages.

And also business owners may well end up looking on the undergraduate campaigns pages because they may have children or relatives or friends who are going to university so they may want to look at that as well so we need to have content on there which they can easily understand and engage with.

And we would never write in 15-year-old slang obviously, we just would write content that is easily understood and inspiring and engaging for a 15-year-old audience and also for all our audiences

Now this is, again, absolutely key: we want every single person who reads our content to understand what we mean the first time they read it.

Part of this because we have a legal requirement to be accessible, which we do, but it gets our message out there more easily and quickly. There's so much competition that we need to make sure that that we are engaging people straight away as soon as they come onto one of our pages.

Our content compass. 

Our website must help users be confident in the University of Derby and our expertise, discover information relevant to their interests and get excited about working with us. ​

​To do this we must provide content that is impactful, accurate and emotive. ​

This content will make users feel engaged, inspired and confident, making them more likely to engage or invest in their future with us and share our content. This will help us raise our profile and reputation, improve the quality of applicants and, ultimately, hit our targets.

This is something we had up on the wall in the digital team's office. I won't read it all out but users being confident that we are the answer to their problems, in essence.

Content that's impactful, accurate and emotive - and that is a key word, emotive is a key word.

If you can make an emotional connection with somebody then you're really going to get them to engage. It's very, very important.

And again, look, I've put some words on a page and so you can take a picture of that.

Emotive as you can see is the big one. People can be confident that we are the answer to their problems.

Now let's have a quick look at best practice.

In terms of best practice, this is an example of content that was on our website and on other people's websites same content.

But first, you must have that in your mind: First impressions count.

Going back to what I said about the competition that's out there.

We did some focus group work on our undergraduate course pages and one of our current students described the idea that when they were looking for their courses they had all the tabs up for the course at the different universities and then they'd go through them.

And so you have a limited amount of time, 10 seconds maybe, if that, to grab their attention on the page and then if they click the little cross in on the tab then that's it. They're gone, they're probably gone forever and you've lost them.

So it's making sure you grab their attention, tell them that we are the answer.

Now this was some content that was actually not on our website it was on another university's website but the academic came over to the University of Derby and carried on their work.

The long-term impacts of Thatcherism: crime, politics and inequality. And then it starts off with - this is the content that was on the page - it starts off with the accounts.

Now, for me, I'm not that interested in research accounting and exactly where the funding's coming from necessarily.

I just want to know what work's going on at the University that I'm interested in.

So, to me, that is not a great way to start a page.

This is what it looked like. Amazing picture.

[The face of Margaret Thatcher painted on a red brick wall in black and white]

This is actual graffiti that the academic saw on their walk around Sheffield, in fact.

And then again there's the accounts and then a massive chunk of content with lots of project questions in it.

When we redid the content when we put it on the University of Derby website, we kept the heading as it was because that is the title of the research.

But then we initially just introduced a paragraph that described what we're talking about.

A major study on how economic and social policies impact on crime is being carried out by researchers in our Social, Cultural and Legal Research Centre. The research focuses on the Thatcher and Major governments in the UK from 1979 to 1997.

So when you land on the page you know exactly what it is, the page content is about, which is very important.

And, in fact, in the accessibility regulations one of the things it describes, not related to the introduction, but every page should have a heading that describes the content of the page, which is very important when you're thinking about what headings you're using on your pages.

But, beside that, so this is how the page looked. We've added a mildly emotive image of a 19th-century jail cell just in case the word Thatcherism doesn't inspire enough emotion in you.

And invest to grow. Invest to grow is a programme that University of Derby administers. 

Invest to Grow is a programme designed to support private sector businesses, predominantly in the form of loan funding, to grow and create jobs.

It provides funding for generally small to medium-sized businesses. Nothing particularly wrong with this content. Title invest to grow, describes it briefly. 

This is what it looked like on the page. Not terrible, terrible content. 

This is what we changed it to. 

Get Invest to Grow funding for your business​

The University of Derby's Invest to Grow programme provides grants and loans of between £15,000 and £250,000 to support private-sector businesses across the East Midlands to innovate, grow and create jobs.

When I do these sessions with people, I ask them what they think is the most important word in the new heading.

Some people get what I mean and some people don't.

The most important word I think in that new heading is the word "your".

The idea behind that is that it's speaking directly to the audience.

Rather than just having "invest to grow". If you know what invest to grow is then you'll go on that page but if you see the heading "get invest to growth funding for your business" you go: oh yeah, oh, that's what that's about, I'm interested in that because I'm looking to get funding for my business.

And then the introduction just adds a bit more detail up to £250,000. Tell people how much they can get. It's always important.

This is what the new page looks like. The image is not massively inspiring but it's a small business doing small business-y things.

Just a bit of data. The total page views for the invest to grow pages went up by 52% from just over 3,000 to over 5,000 in the first six months of the new website compared with the same period in the previous year. 

So 25% of those interactions on the page of primary calls to action: make an enquiry, contact us and find out more.

So the page content is doing what we want it to do. Which is a good thing.

Now this is a case study about a forensic science student, Rebekah. 

Rebekah Muldowney, BSc (Hons) Forensic Science

Where are you based for your work placement and what were the reasons behind your choice? 

Now previously we had case studies that were Q&As, in essence.

So we'd send out some questions to a subject, they'd write their answers, send them back and we'd spell check it, sense check it and then publish it as a Q&A.

Which is all very well, to a point. 

But, with Q&As, you have to read through it all, in fact, to find out what the most interesting thing is.

And are people going to do that?

And also not just the audience but also marketing officers who then go: oh, we've got some content to share, so what's the selling point, what's the main selling point on this? I'm gonna have to read through this to find out what it is.

Which it's time consuming and some people might not want to do that.

So all we did we just turned it into a story.

Not just watching the detectives – working with them too

You can’t watch CSI East Midlands on Netflix – or anywhere else on TV. But, if you could, you’d see our Forensic Science student Rebekah Muldowney. Halfway through her course at the University of Derby, she finds herself working with police forensics officers and detectives as part of her extended work placement.

[a hand wearing plastic gloves holds a magnifying glass]

We just wrote a story about Rebekah with a mildly interesting heading and we pulled in some popular culture into the intro: CSI, Netflix, TV etc.

Some more stats. This case study was up for 11 months before we rewrote it and in the next 11 months there was a 2,000% increase in page views.

One of the main reasons for that is it's shareable content. And that's not just us looking at it and sharing it or the audience looking at it and sharing it. Things like Google search engines will look at content in the same way that human being does and read it in the same way a human being does and classify it as good or not good depending on how well it's written.

I talked about emotional connections before and it is absolutely crucial that we think about how we can do that with our audience.

We want our users - students, businesses, academics etc - to think "that could be me" when we're writing content.

So whether it's invest to grow pages - "that could be me, I want some investment for my business" - or a case study - "oh, that could be me, I could be doing that course, I could be doing that job that person's got or that placement that person's got".

I went to a UCAS fair some time ago and we were showing programme specs to students. One student came up to us wanting to do a computer animation course.

So we showed them the programme specs. They went: "Oh, that's really interesting, yeah, thank you."

And then I said oh by the way we've got a couple of case studies about games animation that you might be interested in. So I showed them this: dream job with Xbox.

[computer generated image of cars racing through a forest]

Gaming student lands dream job with Xbox

If you're playing on your Xbox, there's a chance a University of Derby graduate had a hand in creating the game. That's because Daniel Fern is now working for Microsoft after completing his degree in Computer Games Modelling and Animation.

And then I show them this: somebody who's gone on to work on Red Dead Redemption 2, which apparently was a popular game a few years ago.

[Men wearing cowboy hats and coats carrying rifles and handguns]

Tom's helping to perfect landmark game

Since leaving University, Tom Williams has spent most of his time playing computer games. Scratch that. He plays one particular computer game. Red Dead Redemption 2. AND HE GETS PAID FOR IT!

And their reaction was: "Oh man, oh man, oh man, oh man, oh man." And they went off to speak to their friends.

And that's the kind of reaction you want to get when you're writing some case study content. Somebody going: "Yeah, wow, this is incredible, this is what I could be doing, I want to do this, yeah."

And you can do it for research.

[a frog]

A giant leap towards artificial intelligence dream

Data Science researchers at the University of Derby have developed a revolutionary new computing system that could turn your humble laptop into a mini supercomputer with full artificial intelligence, bringing the possibility of a fully connected world one step closer.

This is a research case study about artificial intelligence but it's 1,300 words but it's written in such a way that the audience wants to continue reading it most of the people who went on the page actually did read most of that content. So it is engaging content.

And it's writing about what people are interested in: the environment.

[a scuba diver swims past a coral reef teeming with small fish]

How we’re helping corals survive

Coral reefs are dying off at an alarming rate. Our Aquatic Research Facility is carrying out work with organisations across the globe to make corals more resilient in the face of man-made afflictions.

We're doing lots of research so describing that research will get people to want to read our content and come on our website and engage with us.

Now what I'm going to do is show you an exaggerated example. In the classroom I get people to work in pairs.

[two pears covered in water droplets]

[Work in pairs* - no pears were harmed in the creation of this slide]

And I do like the image on here so I've kept it on the the deck.

But before we start, remember we want everybody to understand what we mean the first time they read it.

However, universities do have an historical tendency to express expertise with jargon, complicated sentence structure, academic language and Latin. You might want to put brackets cleverness around that.

However, about ten years ago, some research in America at a university there into the use of language found that the more educated the person, the more specialist their knowledge, the greater their preference for plain English.

They may understand the complicated language but they want clarity and brevity. They simply don't have time for all those long words.

And there's an interesting point from a person called Jerry McGovern who writes about content.

In the past, when somebody read a sentence they didn't understand, they saw it as their fault: I must be stupid.

Now they see it as the fault of the organisation: they must be stupid.

So our audience knows that it is our job to make sure they understand the message.

And they're absolutely right.

We want people to understand what we're doing. We want everyone to understand that we're experts in our fields.

And, if you're writing some content, sending some content out whether it's in a leaflet, an email or a web page or whatever it is, if the audience doesn't understand what we're talking about and doesn't get the message, then we've wasted our time.

So we need to make sure that they do.

I was talking to some academics recently and they are being encouraged by funding bodies to use more plain English because there are a lot of lay people on those funding bodies and we need them to understand the exciting work we're doing.

And, of course, you have to remember that there is a proportion of people who are engaging with our content who don't have English as a first language.

So writing language that is straightforward and easily understandable and readable is a good idea.

Now, normally, what I do is I time people when I show them the next slide to see how quickly they understand the content.

So I'm just going to put up for a little while and hum the Countdown theme to myself quietly.

The evolved Djura-by is physically positioned within an environment that commissions a posited unconstrained ability to consociate with significant conurbations via disparate conveyance modus operandi on account of a perceived and actual littoral equidistance, particularly oriental and occidental.

[Countdown theme] 

So, normally with a piece of content, you would expect to have an idea what it means very, very quickly. In terms of this content, it's not great. 

So, if you don't understand it, you haven't failed, the content has failed. And this content is very, very difficult content.

So I'm going to do it again here's another one

Derby is in the centre of the country and has good transport links.​

And I imagine everybody understands that absolutely immediately.

Derby is in the centre of the country and has good transport things. Boom.

It may or may not surprise you that both those sentences mean exactly the same thing.

I'm just going to go off on a mild tangent and show you this.

So this is an extension in the browser by Silktide, which is our audit platform it's disability simulator. So this simulates dyslexia.

[The letters are moving around within the words in the text: "The evolved Djura-by is physically positioned within an environment that commissions a posited unconstrained ability to consociate with significant conurbations via disparate conveyance modus operandi on account of a perceived and actual littoral equidistance, particularly oriental and occidental." ]

I mean, I don't know what dyslexia actually looks like for somebody who has dyslexia but this is a simulation that shows how difficult it is to read content when the words are not familiar and there's a big chunk of content.

So we have had people trying to read this out loud that some people have done pretty well. They've gone about to the third or the fourth line on it missing out a few words here and there. But then compare this with this version.

[The letters are moving around within the words in the text: "Derby is in the centre of the country and has good transport links.​"]

Almost everybody can read that out even though the letters are moving around because the words are familiar, it's a short sentence so it's not overwhelming you before you've even started.

And that's why we need to think about exactly how we write our content, how we present our content, the words we use with our content. If we do need to use academic words, then think about using a description of what they mean, an explanation.

So let's go back to our deck.

So if somebody gave you this bit of content, what do you do?

Well, the easy answer is you go back to them and say what does this mean? What exactly does this mean?

I had a fantastic conversation with an academic a few months ago who was insisting that some very academic language was going on the website. 

So I went to them and said you know there were six people in the world who would understand this and we're trying to express our expertise.

What are we talking about here and they told me with great passion in language that I understood and that's the content we want to put on the website, that description of somebody talking about the amazing work they're doing in the language that everybody understands. That's what we want.

There are tools in terms of creating content and putting content together.

Hemingway Editor, hemingwayapp.com, is something that I use. It just simply goes, well, that's a very long sentence, yeah, maybe maybe you should think about rewriting that.

There's something called readability statistics in Word, a Flesch reading ease, gives you a score.

So, in terms of a Hemingway Editor, it scores you on a readability score on the US school grade level. So that "evolved Djura-by", it's postgraduate only. That's the highest score you get in Hemingway. That scored zero in in Flesch reading ease, which is the worst score you can get.

"Derby is in the centre of the country and has good transport links" - grade five. So that's year six in the UK. We tend to aim for grade nine or ten which again is your 15-year-old, year ten or 11 in the UK.

So it's just thinking about  how you're writing your content. As you can see it says "these sentences are hard to read" so it's just question of using that as a tool to to rewrite your content.

So cafe chat. I've had academics come to me and say so how should I be approaching this, this idea of writing for the web.

So I say think about using straightforward conversational language. Think about how you would describe an idea if you were sitting in a cafe talking to a mix of people, specialists, non-specialists, friends.

So we want our content to be part of the conversation. "We" are the University, you'll see on the website, "we" are the University, "you" are the potential student. researcher, business partner, business partner's granny, whoever it is we're talking to.

That's also why we have our staff profiles written in the first person, "I am".

It comes back to being welcoming and approachable but remembering to express our expertise. You want everyone to feel included and inspired, specialist and non-specialist alike.

And another way of thinking about it is about meeting a potential student or research or business partner in the atrium at an open day or an event.

So how do you start a conversation? You're being professional but you're also being conversational.

So we've got a couple of examples here which I'll just look at. So normally in a session, I would ask the attendees to describe these in conversational language.

So, first of all, "the aim of the University of Derby's accommodation office is to provide each student with a housing opportunity".

So this is a good example of how you would use we and you. So if you're talking directly to undergraduate students whether it's on the page or in the atrium the basic tenet of this sentence is "we want to find you somewhere to live".

That's absolutely the basic of it I mean I'm not saying that's necessarily how you'd want to put it on the website but going back to the simplest form of language, "we want to find you somewhere to live" and then you could go on to describe we have an accommodation office um it's their job do that etc etc.

And here's here's another one.

Each of the assessment points within the course will be facilitated by the evaluation of submitted work. There will not be the expected requirement of in-person, sessional testing at any point during the academic cycle.

So "each of the assessment points within the course will be facilitated blah blah blah". So what does this mean?

First of all, let's read it, find out. So what this what this is saying, so the first sentence is saying you'll be assessed on coursework the second sentence is perhaps even more important, you won't have any exams. So in-personal, sessional testing - you won't have any exams.

And this is a very good example of what we need to avoid.

SMEs and established larger companies within the D2N2 area can benefit from the opportunity to access investment, part-funded by the ERDF, predominantly in the form of loans – though grants are also available – in this programme administered by the University of Derby.

So SMEs etc etc, D2N2, ERDF. So there's three acronyms in there which aren't explained.

So we had one session not that long ago where I asked people if they knew what SMEs were and somebody pipped up and says, "yes, absolutely, I do, they are subject matter experts". Which is absolutely right, except not in this case, where they are small and medium-sized enterprises ie small businesses.

So don't use acronyms without explaining what they are because you can't assume that everybody knows what you know.

And that's one of the great issues that we need to get round is assumed knowledge. Your audience doesn't know what you know and you must remember that. It's very important that you do remember that.

Don't think "oh, everybody knows that" because not everybody does know that.

So SME small and medium-sized enterprises, Derbyshire Derby Nottinghamshire Nottingham - the other way around - D2N2 - its local enterprise partnership area, the ERDF is the European Regional Development Fund.

So what is this piece of content saying? So you've got all that information at you: aargh, that's a lot of information. So what is it saying? Basically it's saying that we can help you get a grant or loan for your business. That's what it's saying. But it starts off with the description, almost background, so we need to get to the key points first. Get to the key points first because people are reading, particularly through a website, they're scrolling down reading very quickly. So make sure you front load your sentences, even in terms of bullet points. You've got a list of bullet points, front load those bullet points because, if people are scrolling through quickly they're looking at maybe the first three or four words so don't start with a sub-clause or anything, put in the actual, the really important stuff right at the start of that. Because if people are scrolling down they may miss exactly what it is they're looking for. So we need to put that in.

There's a few more of these.

The associated positive benefits relating to health and wellbeing due to an individual’s contact with nature has been recognised by research carried out by the University of Derby’s Nature Connectedness Research Group.

Oh, this is some of our fantastic research.

Basically this what this is saying is our researchers have found that contact with nature is good for you. So say that, let's say that and then we can go on to to describe that it's the nature connectedness research group and go on to describe more about what it's doing.

The majority of University of Derby students in the first year of study choose accommodation within halls of residence. This accommodation can be found in close proximity to our campuses and can be reached conveniently and quickly on foot.  

Again, it's thinking about who we are. We are the university, you are the students. So it's our first year students, most of them, most of our first year students live in halls. Our halls are just a short walk from our campuses.

This is the kind of language.

So it's about not being po-faced it's about being conversational.

And this is the final task which starts with me saying writing is rewriting, which is something I think Ernest Hemingway said.

And when you're rewriting it's vital that you understand what it is you're trying to say. So if you're rewriting a chunk of text don't don't go through it rewriting it phrase by phrase sentence by sentence.

Understand the whole and think about how best to express it in the language you want to use.

This is particularly important when the content has come from elsewhere.

So let's have a look at the first example.

The Undergraduate Research Scholarship Scheme is a programme run by the University of Derby that allows students in the second year of study to undertake a fully funded and supported research project. The University of Derby is now encouraging students to put themselves forward for the Undergraduate Research Scholarship Scheme. Any project proposal that is deemed successful and chosen to be taken forward within the scheme will receive bursary support of £2,000 per project.

So, if we're rewriting this content in the brand style, we need to remember that we are the university and think about who the audience is and speak to them directly.

So something like, so you look through it, if you read through this, you will find out you'll see the £2,000 at the end. So £2,000, that's really important. We need to get that. 

So it's something like "you can undertake a research project during your second year and get £2,000 of funding".

That's it. Then you can go on to describe it as the Undergraduate Research Scholarship Scheme.

But there are so many different ways to do this. And some people who attend these sessions have come up with some fantastic and engaging ways: Are you a second-year student? Are you interested in research? Would you like £2,000 to fund for your research project? That kind of language is fantastic, really engaging. Just a series of questions.

Here's another one that mentions SMEs.

There are businesses within all sectors, whether these are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or established larger companies, that would benefit from access to technology and resources, funding and support. This access gives these businesses the opportunity to find a solution to their particular challenges, whether this is a desire to develop new products, expand into new markets or take on new staff. The University of Derby’s Business Services are made for business. These services include putting businesses together with students and graduates from relevant University courses that will allow them to recruit the best talent, providing opportunities for them to collaborate with University researchers and benefit from their expertise, offering professional development courses for the business’s current workforce, and providing venues for conferences, meetings and events.

Now at least this time it's described what they are but that's a massive chunk of content. A massive chunk of content. And what is it talking about? Look at that first sentence: there are businesses within all sectors whether these are small ... and I'm already bored because that's basically just describing all businesses.

So ... and you get to that "would benefit from ..." oh benefit from ... but have you got that because it's like I've just nodded off. And some people just won't read that, certainly the stuff in the middle. 

You'll read the first little bit maybe the last few words and that's it. But it's saying "we can help your business, we can help you get access to funding and support".

Actually, interesting I said that "we can help you" but "you can ..." so starting a sentence or a paragraph with the word you is very, very powerful. 

We did some focus group work with some early-career researchers and they said content that starts with the word you, that talks directly to them that "you can do this" or "you will be able to" etc, they said that was massively engaging. 

That's the content that they're going to go to first. That's the content they're going to read. So think about using those words like that at the top of your paragraph the start of your sentences, using "you".

This is something that Albert Einstein said, who was apparently a clever person. "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."

Now, last two questions: who are we?

We are the University of Derby.

Who are you?

And I don't mean you, the people who are watching this. I mean the audience. 

That is the most important thing: who is your audience? Who are you writing your content for? Why are you writing your content? What do you want your content to do for your audience? And what do you want your audience to do once they've read our content?

So all these things are absolutely important.

If you're unsure about your content, throw it around your desk, speak to your colleagues. Say it out loud even if it's only to yourself. Does that make sense?

Use spell check, obviously, that's completely, completely important that we're not putting content out that is full of errors because people will see errors and think, well, the University of Derby doesn't know how to spell "there" then they can't possibly know how to etc etc.

And that is the session. Thank you very much for listening and goodbye.

Writing for the web video

Back to Writing for the Web