Shorter is better
The first lesson about popular writing is one about brevity. Professors, and academics in general, like long, highly detailed prose, filled with evidence, many markers of coherence, and acknowledgement of multiple perspectives. Academic writing is meant to mirror the type of thinking we want people to engage in. The issue is that we have neither the attention spans nor the cognitive capacity to process large amounts of information, so we chunk it—which is to say, our minds snag a bit of interest, rehearse it, and then store it in relation to some other bit of information, and then we move on. Those little bits of information over time build schema, so that we can engage in more complex thinking later, but when dealing with unfamiliar topics, we have fewer schema for processing them, so we can only comprehend so much before we lose interest or become exhausted. Academic writing is a strong indicator of complex thought, but it isn’t meant to mirror actual thinking.
An important trait of writing for public audiences is to keep it short and chunk the information for your audience. No article genre is better at that than the listicle (an article that is a list). However, concise writing in general is good for impact and memory according to cognitive load theory.
Techniques
Samples
-
- 14 Tips For Traveling During a Viral Epidemic – Coronavirus / Covid-19
- 15 Best Things to Do in Venice (Italy) from Crazy Tourist [1,966 words; 15 minutes]
- 15 Best Burgers in Brooklyn by Alison Lowenstein from TripSavvy [2,206 words; 17 minutes]
- 15 Camping Mistakes by Kaydi Pyette from Canoeroots [1,300 words; 10 minutes]
Assignment
Due Dates
- Listicle draft due Wednesday, September 30
- Editorial Comments due Friday, October 2
- Listicle revision due Monday, October 5