13 Tips For Smart People Struggling With Online Writing

Ditch the academic style and reach more people

Photo: Pro Stock Media

If I’m honest, the first few years of writing online is a painful memory.

I had a chip on my shoulder from being a university educator, but deep down I knew that my writing was not popular online. Few people read my articles and I wasn’t willing to admit how terrible they were.

Over the years, I’ve gotten better from writing more and teaching some of the most amazing writers.

For those of you who have ever taken an advanced writing/literature class in high school school, or at least one college-level writing course, this article is for you.

The truth is, we have to unlearn the stodgy formal academic rules of writing and relearn how to have fun at writing.

The good news is that it’s fairly easy to move the register down with your writing. It’s much harder to kick it up a few notches because the knowledge and experience aren’t there yet.

Here are a few things post-grads and smart people can do to ditch the academic style to reach the masses:

Bleed in the first line — The headline must really grab their attention, so I won’t point out that obvious feature here. That first line must absolutely be great. When you’ve achieved that, you really got the reader’s attention so they keep reading. The second and third lines have to be great too. At any moment, people can click off so don’t waste a single word or line. (This also means to not spend forever storytelling and burying the lede.)

Write conversationally — Seriously, like this paragraph. Write like you’re talking to a curious rocket scientist. They aren’t stupid. In fact, they’re highly specialized in their field — just not yours. As such, treat them like the smart people they are.

Use contractions and natural language. Introduce things well, unpack them if necessary, and give examples. But do this conversationally and space things out. I always like to imagine myself out to coffee with this lab jacket-clad person. It’s always respectful, low-key, personal, and fun.

Know which grammar rules to break — I write fragments on purpose. But that’s not the only thing. (That was a fragment. So was “Seriously, like this paragraph” from the previous point.) I start sentences with coordinating conjunctions.

Most grammar and usage rules are followed perfectly except the ones I bend to make the conversational style work.

Again, I taught grammar for years. My mentor in grad school actually wrote entries from the Encyclopedia Britannica! However, to be conversational you gotta break some rules once in a while or you're gonna break rapport. I can only hope that my old writing mentor forgives me.

Break the curse of knowledge — About unpacking things, don’t over-estimate your audience. Though many of them are smart, don’t assume they remember everything from school. You can gently remind them of a concept without sounding condescending. And if that little piece of knowledge is new to them, explain it to them well.

Often, people start talking at a level that is way ahead of the curve. You might have to go back a few steps and start from there: then you can launch into your higher concepts.

A problem I often see in smart people writing is that their writing in one article is so dense that it slows readers down. Long, dense posts can often be turned into several pieces. I point out that their main idea should be a long-form hub post (aka, the pillar post, epic post, or evergreen content). The rest of the ideas alluded to can be shorter spoke posts that backlink to the hub post. This helps the reader and improve SEO in a big way.

Be likable, not feared — If the reader doesn’t like you by the end of the article, maybe you didn’t do it right. They don’t have to like you as a person, per se. They have to like your writing and style. If you’re conversational and relatable, you’ve done it. Your plan for edutainment worked. That’s what people want in most types of online content.

Having the luxury to write like this makes the task more fun. Academics aren’t taken seriously if they’re too funny. Online writing is different. Humor and personality are encouraged.

Being likable is a much better position than being the know-it-all academic who is trying so hard to impress us with their knowledge. The former fails to connect with the reader. At that point, it doesn’t matter how correct or well-researched you are. When in doubt, just run things through an online tone analyzer.

Bottom line: everyone loses if you aren’t liked.

Use the one-sentence paragraph a lot — This is something that doesn’t exist in academic writing. Honestly, it’s weird. All I see is a sentence that is an island to itself. And yet the most-read online writers do this a lot. Sometimes they do several of these in a row. It really drove me crazy when I started seeing this everywhere. I’d see them in articles and emails alike. But I noticed that whatever I was reading went by fast.

One-sentence paragraphs make you feel like you’re speed-reading.

This must be what it’s like to read large-font books too. Now I get it though. An isolated sentence has more gravity. It pops out. One-sentence paragraphs have endless benefits if used strategically. Mostly, I find them to help you sound more conversational. It brings pause to a lengthy stream of thought. If academic writing is like a long lecture, online writing is like quick banter over coffee. You have to adjust or you’ll lose your audience.

Use shorter paragraphs — In school, they ask you to have full paragraphs. Some practice the PEA format: Point, Evidence, and Analysis. And we’re not even including transition sentences that cap off paragraphs. All of that takes up a lot of room on a page.

One way to discipline yourself to write more concisely is to write less, but say more.

That’s the fine art of writing. What you don’t want is a wall of text. That’s death to an online reader’s attention span. I’m an extremist on this one. Because semicolons often invite long compound-complex sentences, I never use them. I haven’t in six years.

Tackle one idea at a time. Like a fine wine, let it breathe on its own for a bit. Don’t guzzle it! Surround it with compliments (that is, tangential ideas). Practice the stand-out rule from Strunk and White’s perennial best-seller The Elements of Style: Omit useless words!

Use short 3–5 sentence paragraphs, and break out into one-sentence paragraphs for variety and impact. You can still use the PEA format, but space those sentences out.

Which would you rather read?

(Identical sections with the same width.)

Support your points, but no over-kill — This is one thing I love about college-educated people. They know how to support an argument. While some people forget this, it’s really important. Remember that anecdotal evidence is an oxymoron (millennials, I’m talking to you).

You can’t have hard science and utter subjectivity.

Err on objective science to back your points, but use your subjective experience to connect the dots or to bring it all home on a personal level. Don’t forget to cite reputable sources and give me at least one number in your writing if possible. I love statistics, even though they can be cherry-picked. Seeing a number or five almost makes everything believable. And get to that figure early in your article!

Edutainment trumps scholarliness — This is about the support overkill statement above. It isn’t always the case, but I noticed what does best on places like Medium are articles that enlighten, inspire, and entertain. They don’t have to be the most-researched pieces, though research makes it more credible.

In the end, people don’t want an essay or lecture. They want to be entertained in the least-academic way possible. Reading articles shouldn't not be a chore. They should be fun. Adding in humor and a breezy style is much preferred to the dry tone of something that might otherwise be brilliant.

Put yourself into the piece — It’s a no-no to put yourself into academic writing unless it serves a distinct purpose. For online writing, it’s de rigueur. So while you do have to add some outside research and proof to your assertions, adding yourself in the mix makes you more relatable. It’s like validity on a date with the personal narrative.

The subjective often makes the writing more likable. One way to do this is to have a sense of humility. Readers often want to avoid mistakes that others make. A story about you messing up shows you’re down to earth and looking out for the reader. And oddly, they might secretly enjoy reading about your folly.

Make it pretty — Academics just have graphs and diagrams of their data. For most occasions, you probably don’t need this. It’s better to have a brilliant hero image to get the reader’s attention. Also, modify your image. If it’s a good free stock photo, chances are it has been used hundreds of times. Make it different, like your article. Modify it and make it special (but don’t add your logo or handle to it).

Begin and end with emotion — We know that the strongest arguments are the ones that are the most reasonable and valid. To be believable, science trumps emotion every time . . . except when it doesn’t.

Academics often make the mistake of trying to be the most right. But the human condition is not scientific. It’s the lightest science of psychology that supports this condition. Storytelling, communication, art, and language need emotion to perform well so make your pieces emotional in the right places.

Make it actionable — Here’s a funny thing: every time I’ve had a business article rejected, I didn’t have those actionable items at the end. Coincidence? I think not. Business articles have to include some clearly-labeled list or tip to do now. I disagree with the whole premise, but it’s not my decision. (Of course I would say this, I’m an academic.)

Short articles on Medium or Forbes are for busy people who usually don’t have time to wax philosophical. Give them something they can do now to move the needle forward. This is why listicles work so well. And as for non-business articles, the same rule often applies — especially in the self-help and health niches.

When smart people include these thirteen items in their writing, they’ll notice that it soars. More people will give them the attention they deserve and finally benefit from their wisdom!

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