Thursday, March 27, 2008

Follow the links

Links are not only for blogs.

The key to a good online article is hyperlinks. Poynter Online writer Christopher "Chip" Scanlan says that after years of teaching online writing to various newsrooms around the country, links (the short term for hyperlinks) are the best bet for an enthused online reader. We have talked about righting deliberate headlines for the Web in our class, but not have talked about the content. Moving behind the letters on the screen, Web stories offer further dimensions of storytelling through devices like hyperlinks. The images a reader conjures up when reading a print story are visualized on the Web through hyperlinks--hence the trend toward more online publication.

1 comment:

Sue Burzynski Bullard said...

The cool thing about adding links to either a blog or to online stories is that it allows you to add context and more information to your story very easily. You don't have to include every last detail in your own story, you can point your reader to more information elsewhee.