 |
Brief Guide to Writing a Brief Guide
|
|
A checklist for all writers
|
- First, and most importantly of all, stick to writing on areas where you are well informed, or to areas where you can become well informed in a short space of time.
- Approach the guide principally as a source of practical information aimed at people who are new to the subject. A previously uninformed reader should ideally finish the guide feeling confident enough to start exploring the complexities of the subject in more detail on their own. Give them the main ideas/principles, hint at the many corollaries and give them some good links for further reading (Giraffe ones if possible - we can suggest some relevant ones).
- Try to keep guides at the 1500 word mark or above.
- Try and use the main keywords that are relevant to the guide as many times as possible to increase visibility to search engines. For example, in a brief guide to brief guides I would try and use the phrase ‘brief guides’ as often as possible. This is sometimes hard to do without making sentences sound ridiculous – after all our normal reaction when discussing a particular topic is to revert to pronouns to refer to the main concept. But bearing all this in mind, try to use the keyword(s) as frequently as possible without losing too much readability. We will discuss with you the particular keywords that are relevant to your guide.
- Try and reference other brief guides that are related to the topic you are writing on. For example, the guide to university open days links to the guide to student finance.
- Try to avoid linking to other sites, we want visitors to stay within the Giraffe network to maximise the number of click-throughs.
- Try to minimise the possibility of material becoming irrelevant or inaccurate in the future. For example, avoid using absolute prices but stick to relatives like cheap and expensive.
|
|
|
|
Comments, copyright and linking
|
Comments on this brief guide would be welcome. Also, please let us know if you do put in a link to this guide from your website and we will try to reciprocate with a link from us to your site.
Copyright: these pages are protected by copyright and reproduction of this material is strictly prohibited. Copyright belongs to Giant Games Limited, owner of the briefguides.co.uk and onlineshopping.co.uk websites.
© 1997-2006 Giant Games Limited, but you are welcome to have a link to this webpage.
|
|
|
