What a comforting statement – especially for those of us that went to college for four years…at the very least.
But really, when it comes to writing for the web, this statement is a good rule of thumb.

Of course, forgetting everything is an overstatement. Grammar and some writing basics are always important. But, a lot of what we’ve learned, we need to work to overcome each time we write for web.

Writing more – with big words and flowery sentences – does not make you seem smart. It just makes you annoying.
Writing a lot doesn’t make you seem knowledgeable about a topic. It makes you forgettable – because no one is ever going to get to the end of your piece.

With all things web hurtling toward us at the speed of light, it’s clear that the web is the way of the future. Actually, it’s already kind of the way of today.

So, when are we going to stop teaching fluffy writing? When will we have educated people who don’t have to unlearn and who can just get better at doing?

Have we started yet?

If a Google search for “web writing class” is an indication, not really.

The top few listings included:

1. www.sciencesitescom.com
   This site offers a two-day workshop. I couldn’t figure out much more about the organization offering it. The site didn’t work in my browser. (Not saying much for the workshop, teaching web-related skills and all.)
2. www.hwg.org
   The HTML Writers Guild offers a six-week course. It covers a good range of topics, including web reading habits, search engine rankings, effective writing and formatting tips, web design, creativity, and even measuring success with web analytics.
3. www.webwritingthatworks.com
   This course is a two-day in person workshop or a six-week online workshop. Again, for a site teaching web writing, not terribly impressive. Text is broken up with headings, but it’s very long. (I didn’t want to read it, so I may not be describing all this information right.) Inconsistencies in the bullet point writing – also not impressive.

The other listings making up the top ten? All online courses or workshops. While some sites were credible, none were for educational institutions.

Ironically enough, a search for “web writing college” first lists a page on Dartmouth.edu with tips for writing an academic paper. Far from effective web writing tips.

A search for “web writing university” brought up more of the same. Halfway through the page, there was a listing for Oxford. This page was just a guide housed under a section describing the University’s Web Strategy Group.

Maybe educational sites just aren’t optimizing for search?

My research for this post was very brief – by no means conclusive. But I thought maybe schools offered the classes, they just weren’t showing up in search results.

So I went to the source.

Amherst College was among the top liberal arts colleges for 2010. One of the easier college sites to navigate, I reviewed their course offerings in the English department. Among them: Reading and Writing About Nature, Writing Poetry I and II, Screenwriting, Writing Fiction I and II, and The Graphic Novel.

Students studying writing in college are much more likely to end up writing for a website than they are writing poems or graphic novels.

I know there are creative schools out there for advertising or design that offer courses for more specific types of writing.
But the web is more than mainstream today. Shouldn’t creating content for it have the same coverage?

And another thing…

An aside, but to take this just a step further, can the succinct qualities of web writing please conquer all other types of writing? Legal writing, fine print, academic pieces. Of course, there are some reasons these types of writing are the way they are. Really, though, no one wants to spend an hour reading something that they could read in ten minutes.
If the point of content is not to be creative and entertaining, then why should we have to wade through the fluff?

In closing – web writers – please try to conquer the world. Just a small task to ponder.