Perhaps you have heard about “chunking” as a way of writing short, concise and to-the-point paragraphs which are conducive to allowing readers to scan quickly and determine whether the information they are seeking is here or whether they need to go elsewhere. The time any site has to hook the reader is ten seconds or less, and when readers quickly scan a page short, chunked paragraphs make it much simpler to decide whether or not they will remain on the page. Any time content is made up of short, meaty paragraphs, the reader is much more likely to stay put than when a site has long, rambling paragraphs. So, as a web writer, how do you write chunky paragraphs?
One Idea per Paragraph
Web writers should consider each paragraph a well-defined and clear-cut object, apart from the rest of the content with one primary purpose. You must know what that purpose is, because if you are uncertain, your readers will not know the purpose either. Highlight your primary purpose throughout your paragraph, and if you find you have moved into another idea, then create another paragraph chunk. These short, concise paragraphs don’t have room for irrelevant ideas, so weed out ruthlessly. Every single sentence will contain words which relate directly to the main paragraph topic, and rather than using a thesaurus, it’s acceptable to use the same word time and time again to ensure your point gets across. If you are describing something which has a distinct chronological order, use words such as first, next and finally.
In web writing you have such a limited amount of time to get your information out there, you will use the inverted paragraph style of writing which puts out your fresh ideas at the beginning of each paragraph. However, more than print content you must also work off what your readers already know in the beginning of the sentence—what is familiar to them—to the new ideas you are putting forth by the end of the sentence. You will create a kind of chain by starting with the known, and ending a sentence with the new. You will then start the next sentence with the new idea you ended up with in the last sentence and so on and so on. If you need context to make a sentence make sense to your reader, insert the context first before you state the overall idea.
Try Writing a Chunky Paragraph
If you are still uncertain on how to write chunky paragraphs, try this with a topic of your choice. First, write your topic sentence then write some concrete details about this topic sentence. All specific facts related to the topic will be included such as definitions or evidence. Next, write what you think about those details—your commentary. You will be offering your own opinions and ideas during this part. Alternate commentary and details until you have written the entire article then write a concluding sentence which wraps up the entire paragraph.
Websites which offer content that is difficult to process and understand are not taking advantage of paragraph chunking which means your readers must work harder than they should in order to grasp the meaning of your words. Think about reading a book without chapters or paragraphs, just one long expanse of words. Most readers would read less than one page before giving up. In the same way, your content must be extremely scannable or your readers will be gone as quickly as they can press the back button.
Tags: Website Writing
