WebWise Solutions

So you're probably thinking, "Hey, I already know the Paste approach - you find an article you really like on the Web, and you cut and paste it into your own." Well, nice try ... and that approach has certainly been tried by a lot of writers! Actually, PASTE (capital letters, so here comes the acronym) stands for:

• Purpose
• Audience
• Subject
• Technique
• Expression

... which is a powerful means of building and focusing your writing content. This article will explore the "PAS" topics; the next article will explore the "T" and "E".

Let's get started with Purpose, Audience, and Subject ...

Purpose

The two main purposes in writing are to inform or to persuade.

Informing

OK, this part's easy - you just dump a bunch of information onto the page and your readers will be "informed" ... Right, if they're still reading that brain dump after the first two paragraphs! Informing is an art, and it depends on how well you convey:

• What your readers need or want to know
• Why they should know it

These two items work closely together. As you do your research - on the Internet, in books, from personal sources - keep filtering the information with those two guidelines in mind. With each new item of information you find, ask yourself if this is what the readers really need, and why they would need it.

Here are a few suggestions for gathering content for your writing:

1. Define a list of high-level keywords to focus on. For example, in this article I used the PASTE elements, then added Informing, Persuading, Research, Scope, etc.
2. Use these as flexible outline points (see the WebWise article "Overcoming Writer's Block")
3. Ask yourself a few questions for each of these keywords. For example, in this section I asked myself, "What are the main purposes in writing?" - "Can writing be a mix of informing and persuading?" - etc.
4. Answer the questions you asked, to generate content for the topic.

Persuading

Is your purpose to persuade your readers to adopt a viewpoint? That's marketing ... or is it? You may want to describe features of a product so readers will want to buy it. But you may also need to do a less commercial form of persuasion in your article, such as an easier solution to a problem, a way to avoid catastrophes or misunderstandings, or ways to save time (which can also save money). Whatever you are "selling" - products, ideas, techniques, etc. - keep these points in mind:

• Explain the benefits and let those do the selling: avoid hype and hyperbole.
• If you point out the problems of not using your approach or product, focus on events but don't get personal.
• Back up your conclusions with concrete examples and case studies, so the conclusions are compelling.

If your article is mostly persuasive, make a short list of the most important convincing points - and then reinforce them carefully and consistently.

Audience

To write effectively for your readers, you need to understand their roles, their experience levels and the kind of connection you want to establish with them.

Roles

As you write, make sure you know understand the background your likely audience. What are their occupations, job descriptions, or skills? It's easy to assume that your readers are "just like me" - so you end up basically writing to yourself. That may be OK in some cases, but with a little forethought and practice, you can broaden the appeal of your article without losing its subject focus. This is a good way to have your writing passed along by word of mouth or linked to.

Experience Level and Pace

One of the most common mistakes we make in writing is not connecting well with the experience level of our readers. When that happens, readers may feel overwhelmed (not enough connecting of the dots) or bored (too much dot-connecting). Here are some traps we may fall into:

• Omitting important steps in a procedure
• Assuming too much and explaining too little
• Repeating or over-emphasizing non-essential details
• Not defining terms adequately
• Interchanging terms or using them inconsistently
• Not developing ideas sequentially and purposefully

Any of these issues in your writing can lessen your readers' interest in the article, so it's worth it to find and fix the problems - or prevent them in the first place.

Personal Connection

The reader trusts you as the "storyteller" of the information. To keep connected with the reader, make sure you use first person ("I"), second person ("you"), and third person ("it, them, him," etc.) effectively. In this Internet age, writing has grown less formal in terms of audience, even when the content is technical. Words like "you" and "me" and "we" used to be frowned on; now they're much more acceptable (and we don't mind contractions, either!) For example, as soon as you use a command in your writing ("Insert the installation CD-ROM"), you've opened the door for second-person writing - so you might as well embrace it.

As you write, stay consistent with your audience connection. User actions deserve a "you" or "we" or "let's" - while internal system actions usually get the third-person treatment.

Subject

The two keys to conveying your subject material to your readers are research and scope.

Research

The Internet has brought a truly staggering number of sources for information right to our fingertips. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges is sifting and sorting through the mass of information to find what's relevant to your article. Remember the purpose of your article - and view the content through that filter.

You can add credibility to your writing by quoting or referring to recognized studies or opinions on the subject, but you should also do a good job of "reading between the lines" or "connecting the dots" of the information. While you may feel at times as though "there's nothing new under the sun," there are still plenty of ways to pull information together in interesting and compelling ways for your readers.

One effective way to add that connective material is to infuse your thought process and writing with questions. "What would happen if ...?" "Why is this approach so popular?" "What are the problems you'll likely encounter?" - are examples of questions that drive connections between ideas and "new" ideas themselves.

Scope

Some of us are "pack rats" at home, who don't want to throw anything out. Even more of us are "language pack rats," who cram too may ideas and topics into an article. Think of your article as a container: each unnecessary or unrelated topic or idea adds extra weight to the container, and the reader carries that weight around in his or her mind. Your article can be large in size and deep in concept, but what keeps it light enough to stay with is:

• A well-defined scope with the right topics
• Sentences and paragraphs that are lean, not bloated
• Solid connections between ideas to draw the reader along

Conclusion

PASTE your writing - Purpose, Audience, Subject, Technique, and Expression - and see the difference!

And stay tuned for the next article, on Technique and Expression in writing ...