Quote: Bernstein (pg.1, paragraph 3)

“If the words are dull, nobody will read them, and nobody will come back. If the words are wrong, people will be misled, disappointed, infuriated. If the words aren’t there, people will shake their heads and lament your untimely demise.”

Comment:

Writing with purpose has become more and more important as the world modernizes and as people read less and less than they once did. The key takeaways from the articles written by Bernstein, Dunlevie, and Kleon was that writing needs to be creative to hook a reader in. Nowadays, with more reading becoming digital, writers must find new ways to engage with their audience and keep them engaged enough to keep coming back. Dunlevie, in her study, found that people who read on the internet read in a very different way than book readers causing readers to disengage. Tendencies to skim read and the fact that it’s hard to stare at a screen for long periods of time. She suggested that paragraphs be no longer than 2-3 sentences and each line of text be only 80 or so characters. Seems a bit unorthodox right? Well, she’s found that separating thoughts, even more, has proven easier to keep online readers engaged and to read the whole page rather than resorting to skimming. In Bernstein’s, ’10 Tips of Writing the Living Web’, he’s listed ways to learn how to write just like that. He wants writers to learn by writing often with reason, in a tight, condensed way, that makes it easy for the readers to engage in. He also says to make good friends because they will keep you relevant and it’ll keep your life eventful. Siting your friends if they get brought up in your writing is also important. However…

Question:

I don’t agree with the point of making good enemies. Bernstein states that “readers love controversy and learn from debate,” (Bernstein, 3) but I don’t think it’s necessary to be enemies with someone just to keep readers engaged and your topics relevant. At that point, changes should be made, maybe in your life if that’s the case, to create new topics to keep people reading your work. Would you agree?