For the Writing for the Web course at Clark College, I wrote an in depth article on “Web Writing: The Editorial Article.”
The article serves academic courses on the art of writing for the web, exploring the most common type of web published content found on blogs, the editorial article.
Web content represents traditional media content formats and styles, but editorial writing on the web is a modified version of the traditional editorial or op-ed format and style.
An op-ed piece is an opinion. It is distinguished from other articles in a magazine and newspaper as they may be well written but they do not represent the rules and guidelines required by journalists and reporters. The writers are typically not reports, nor educated in journalism.
An editorial article may be an opinion piece, but it is one that argues a specific point or perspective. On the web, an editorial article may be written by a reporter, journalist, professional writer, or anyone with a defensible opinion.
As I explain in the article, a web editorial article is backed by links to resources and references supporting each point in your argument. Traditional media didn’t have the ability to easily link, leaving the author to cite their supporting arguments with footnotes, end notes, and bibliographies.
Web articles are also written according to web standards, using HTML formatting styles such as blockquotes and proper citation links in compliance with Copyright Fair Use, links, multimedia, and shorter paragraphs broken up by a single thought, concept, or idea rather than a large block of text that conveys an entire concept.
The article on how to write an editorial article online includes a definition of the editorial article, examples of editorial articles that changed the world, editorial writing voice and persona, audience demographics and targeting, editorial styles and types, editorial article structure and formats, technical tips for web publishing, and examples of the problems many have with writing editorial articles online. It also includes a large reference and resource list for more information on editorial writing for the web and in general.
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2 Comments
What about the different language style. ie: US english and UK english, which one is better English for writing article ?
Good question and unfortunately obvious answer. Depends upon your audience. No one cares any more, except those that do care, and those may or may not be your audience. That’s obtuse, but the fact is that no one cares about the type of English you choose to write and publish in. They want the content. If your audience is best served by one or the other, and it matches the purpose and mission of your site’s goals, then pick one, otherwise use what is natural to you to use so you are thinking about the content and not the word choices as you write.