People remember information better when stories are organized according to well-known structures. (Mandler and Johnson 1977; Kintsch, Mandel and Kozminsky in 1977; Mandler 1978; Stein 1976; and Thorndyke 1977)

The reason: People have mental frameworks — aka schemata — that they’ve built through experience and instruction. These mental frameworks provide a skeletal structure for organizing information as they read. (Anderson, 1977; Rumelhart, 1975)

“Comprehension and composition bear a reciprocal relation to each other.”

— Robert C. Calfee, Ph.D, professor of Education and Psychology at Stanford University

The more familiar the writer’s framework, the easier it is for readers to place new information into their own schematas. Otherwise, information just comes across as a list of facts, which people can only recall through rote memorization.

That’s why researchers Robert C. Calfee and R. Curley set out to create a taxonomy, or classification, of the most well-known story structures. Here’s what they learned along the way.

Common story structures

Bonnie J.F. Meyer suggests using one of these five structures for the major points in your piece:

Bonnie Armbruster, Ph.D., professor of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, lists these common structures:

• Simple list: List items or ideas where the order of presentation is not significant.
• Compare/contrast: Describe similarities or differences between two or more things.
• Temporal sequence: Show the passage of time.
• Cause and effect: Organize by reason and result.
• Problem/solution: Cite the problem and the solution.

Draw a narrative line

Armbruster also offers these elements for a narrative story:

• Goals
• Actions
• Outcomes

In 1975, cognitive psychologist David Rumelhart developed this formula for a simple narrative:

• A story = a setting (It was a dark and stormy night) + 1 or more episodes
• An episode = an event (Boy meets girl) + 1 or more responses
  • A response includes:
    • A plan (He decided to call her).
    • An action (He picked up the phone.)
    • A consequence (And she came running.)

All the story structures that are fit to print?

Based on their survey of story structures, Calfee and Curley developed this taxonomy.

Which of these story structures can you use to make your next piece easier to read, understand and remember?

___

Sources: Robert C. Calfee, and R. Curley “Structures of prose in content areas,” In Understanding reading comprehension, ed. J. Flood. Newark, DE: International Reading Association, 1984, pp. 161-180

Bonnie J. F. Meyer, “Reading Research and the Composition Teacher: The Importance of Plans, College Composition and Communication, Vol. 33, No. 1 (February 1982), pp. 37-49

Bonnie B. Armbruster, “The problem of inconsiderate text,” in Comprehension instruction, ed. G. Duffey. New York: Longmann, 1984, pp. 202-217

The post Why use a story structure? appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

How do you organize a compelling feature?

Model this piece, which Loring Leifer wrote for Northern Funds’ marketing magazine, Northern Update. In it, the Wylie Communications head writer and senior writing coach includes all of the elements you need to craft a compelling feature story.

Headline

Start with a feature head. A creative feature deserves a creative headline. Wordplay works beautifully for this one.
Let’s pause and ponder that for a minute too.

Bridge the gap

Deck

Summarize the story in your deck. Clever headlines grab attention, but they don’t fully explain the story. So write a summary deck in 14 words or less.

May-December marriage? Here’s how to span the age divide and retire together

Lead

Show instead of tell in a feature lead. Feature leads are concrete, creative and provocative. In this example, compression of details gets the piece off to a good start.

Long before Tim Robbins hooked up with Susan Sarandon, 12 years his senior, William Shakespeare, at 18, married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway.

Background

Broaden the story in the background section. Here, you explain why we’re covering this story now, give broader context for the piece and fill in the details readers need to understand the rest of the story.

(Loring also included a sidebar, which explained in detail the special financial problems challenges confronting May-September couples.)

Nut graph

Put the story into a nutshell in the nut paragraph. Here, you tell people what you’re going to tell them.

Body: Section one

Avoid the muddle in the middle: Organize the body of your feature-style story into clear, complete parts. Then use subheads to label the parts for your readers.

See how Loring writes like a roller coaster. That is, she weaves metaphors, examples and concrete details throughout the piece to keep readers’ interest.

Body: Section two

Although this is a linear feature, Loring uses subheads, bullets, bold-faced lead-ins and other display copy. These make scanning easier and lift ideas off of the page.

Body: Section three

Notice how Loring has developed her bridge analogy in the display copy. One key to using an extended metaphor is to do so lightly. If Loring used a bridge reference in every paragraph, we’d soon grow weary of the analogy.

“By being realistic upfront about what is possible for the future, you can ward off putting your younger spouse in a detrimental situation… and alone,” she says.

Conclusion

Finally, draw to a close in the conclusion. The conclusion has two parts:

1. The wrap up, where you tell readers what you’ve told them. Again, note the concrete details here and throughout the piece.

2. The kicker, where you leave a lasting impression with concrete, creative, provocative information. Here, Loring returns to and spins her bridge analogy for a satisfying final note.

So you may be part of a bridge to a longer life for the next generation.

How can you craft a feature-style story like Loring’s?

Get the word out with clear, compelling copy

Each day, your readers are bombarded with 5,000 attempts to get their attention. That’s nearly 2 million messages a year. Is your copy getting through to your tired, busy, distracted audience?

These days — when people are more inclined to discard information than to read it — you need copy that captures attention, cuts through the clutter and leaves a lasting impression.

Wylie Communications can help. With Wylie Communications on your team, you can:

• Deliver copy that sells. When Ann’s not writing or editing, she’s training other writers. Or helping companies get the word out to their audiences. She applies the best practices she develops for her training and consulting business to her writing and editing projects. So your project will cut through the clutter, lift your ideas off the page or screen and deliver copy that sells products, services and ideas.
• Bring award-winning talent to your project. Ann’s work has earned nearly 60 communication awards, including two IABC Gold Quills. Let us help you produce world-class business communications, as well.
• Get writers who get business. Ann has interviewed George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Robert Redford. But she really enjoys chatting with economists, engineers and surgeons. At Wylie Communications, we’ve written about communication technology for Sprint, about personal finance for Northern Trust and — despite the fact that Ann’s preferred form of exercise is the hike from recliner to refrigerator — about fitness medicine for the Mayo Clinic. We’ll get up to speed on your industry, quickly and thoroughly.
• Stop working weekends. Our team provides a virtual staff to write and edit newsletters and magazines for Saint Luke’s, Northern Trust, State Street/Kansas City and Sprint. Let us pick up the slack in your department, too.

Now let’s see yours! Please post or link to your original inverted pyramid and revised feature in the comments section.

The post Tips for organizing magazine articles appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

When Ian Jones needed to craft a — yawn! — diversity story for employees at Columbia Gas of Virginia, his first instinct was to go with a fact pack.

You can see Ian’s natural creativity peeking through with the concrete details in the headline and — buried deep but still breathing — in the lead.

But by the end of a recent Catch Your Readers Master Class, Ian had totally rewritten his piece from an inverted pyramid to a feature story. That basic structure lets the concrete details rise to the top.

Here’s his before and after:

1. Lead

Like (too) many of us, Ian was taught to cram all of the facts into the lead, so readers would get the key details before they stop reading after the first paragraph. Here’s how his opening paragraph looked:

You can see the problem with that: a lead that is so thick that most readers will stop reading before the first paragraph. Plus, Ian’s delightful concrete details get smothered in all of the not-so-interesting facts.

Instead of a fact pack, write a lead that draws readers in with a concrete detail or three. Don’t tell the whole story in the lead — that’s what the whole story is for — but write a lead paragraph that entices people to read the second paragraph.

Here’s how Ian handled that in his rewrite:

2. Nut graph

Inverted pyramids don’t have nut graphs, so neither did Ian’s original story.

When you don’t feel compelled to put all of the W’s in the lead, they need someplace to go. Ian moves them into the nut paragraph:

At 57 words, that’s still a little thick. What can you do in 25 words or less?

3. Background section

No background in the original story. But in the rewrite, Ian provides context for the story — the reason the diversity initiative is so important:

4. Body

In his first version, Ian emphasizes the event — what happened during the kickoff — in the body of his post:

In the second, he focuses on the impact: what the attendees learned that might be helpful to you, too:

Note also the crisp paragraphs in the final version compared to the 100-plus-word-long ones in the original.

5. Wrapup

The great thing about inverted pyramids is that you don’t have to craft a conclusion. When you’re finished, you just stop typing. That’s what Ian did in his original.

But the feature-style story structure demands an ending. In his revision, Ian summarizes the story in the wrapup, or the penultimate paragraph, topped as it should be with a subhead to separate the body from the ending:

6. Kicker

Ian ends with bang and circles back to the top with a concrete details kicker that leaves a lasting impression:

Focus on the reader.

“Thinking about the reader from the start really changes everything — from story angle to story structure to sentence length,” Ian says. “Instead of approaching writing from the perspective of a writer, I now think about whether I’m writing a story I would want to read.’”

The post What’s the best article writing structure? appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

When I teach the feature-style story structure, communicators nod. It seems reasonable that readers would prefer concrete, creative stories to a hierarchical blurtation of facts.

BUT — and as Pee-Wee Herman said, there’s always a big but — they wonder, is the feature-style story structure for everything? Even for writing an email? Even for writing event invites?

Yes, Virginia, the feature structure works for almost everything — email messages included, event invites include. And here’s proof, thanks to Sarah Herr, employee communications manager at Sensus.

In my Think Inside the Inbox workshop, Sarah rewrote her company’s holiday party invitation, transforming it from blah to brilliant, using the feature structure. Here’s how she did it:

1. Lead

The job of the lead is to grab readers’ attention and draw them in. But too often, writers get down to the nuts and bolts in email invitations.

Here’s Sarah’s original just-the-facts-ma’am approach:

But the key to a good invitation lead is to make folks want to attend the event. So tell them what they can look forward to in a concrete, creative, provocative feature lead.

Sarah visited my BFF and research assistant, Google, to find out what her colleagues could do at the science museum. Her revision whets my appetite with specific details about the party:

Remember, you’re covering the topic in the subject line. If you mention the holiday party there, you don’t need to lead with it.

2. Nut graph

In the nut graph, you’ll tell readers where you’re taking them.

Inverted pyramids don’t include nut graphs, so Sarah’s original email invitation skipped this element too. But in her revised piece, Sarah encapsulates the main point in one quick, informal sentence:

3. Background

The background section gives readers information they need to know before they dive into the body of the story. That might be a definition, bit of context or history lesson.

But background is also known as blah-blah. Don’t let blah-blah get between your readers and your story: Keep this to one short paragraph.

In her first version, Sarah has a quick paragraph of background after the lead:

Her revision pares that down a bit:

4. Body

The body is where you develop the story. In this case of an email invitation, you’ll give a few more details about what people will be able to see, learn or do at the event.

Sarah’s original was already pretty good. She had me at heavy hors d’oeuvres and carving stations!

In the revision, she adds a few more details about what attendees will be able to see and do:

If you have a series of three or more activities to showcase, you might use bullet points to make the body a list. The line breaks and extra white space make these activities stand out.

5. Wrapup

In the wrapup, you’ll draw to a conclusion.

Your call to action goes here. That means the wrapup — not the lead — is where you put time, date, place, contact information and the reserve button. Something like:

6. Kicker

The job of the kicker is to end with a bang, to leave a lasting impression. Inverted pyramids don’t include kickers, so Sarah’s original doesn’t, either. But in her revision, she ends with a bang in a concrete, creative provocative final paragraph:

Now that sounds like a party!

Congratulations, Sarah, on a great email!

How to structure an email invitation

The feature structure increases reading, sharing and more. (Download our free e-book chapter on why the feature outperforms the inverted pyramid.)

For that reason, features work for virtually all media, channels, topics and audiences. Choose this structure when you write a formal email, professional email or business email, as well as an email invitation. It’s also a good idea to use a feature approach for social media and other business communications. Next time you find yourself composing an email invitation, double-check this list before sending the email.

Learn more about writing emails:

• What email address should you use?
• How can you write a compelling subject line?
• How else can you make your email programs more effective?

The post How to structure an email invitation appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

I love it when my clients send me their rewrites after I present a writing workshop.

For one thing, it’s gratifying to see that people’s writing actually improves after I visit! For another, these pieces make great case studies in good writing.

Workers Compensation Board-Alberta writer Caren did a wonderful job rewriting an article during my Catch Your Readers workshop. Notice how her rewrite:

• Focuses the angle on reader benefits. Caren moves from event to impact. Her original story angle was WCB’s new opioid claim rollout. The rewrite focused on how employers can help save employees from addiction and overdose by using the board’s new resources.
• Uses the feature structure. This approach has been proven in the lab to be more effective at reaching readers. It also allows writers to plug and play their information into an existing format, saving time and effort.
• Keeps the piece short. The revised piece weighs in at fewer than 200 words — a one-minute read. So you can use the feature structure even when you don’t have a lot of space.

Here’s how she did it, with a great blog-post structure that works every time:

1. Lead

The original lead focused on background — in this case, a history lesson:

There’s a reason the feature structure places the background in the third paragraph, not the first. Background — otherwise known as the blah-blah — doesn’t grab readers’ attention.

Instead, write a lead that hooks the reader with a startling statistic or another concrete, creative, provocative lead. That’s what Caren did in her rewrite:

2. Nut graph

Caren didn’t include a nut graph in her original news story, because inverted pyramids don’t have nut graphs.

But in her rewrite, she puts the story “into a nutshell” — and shows readers how they’ll benefit from the piece:

3. Body

The original angle of the body is how the sausage was made. It’s not very interesting to clients whose employees are abusing opioids.

Readers want to know, “What’s in it for me?”

The revised body focuses on the readers’ needs with a list of tips for dealing with the crisis:

4. Wrapup

There’s nothing wrong with this call to action, but it isn’t very rousing:

In Caren’s rewrite, on the other hand, the wrapup is nice, neat and sweet:

5. Kicker

Here Caren ends with a bang and comes full circle by referring back to statistics in the lead:

How to structure a blog post

Next time you start writing your blog post or social media post, try the feature structure. It’s been proven in the lab to get a lot of people to read your post and share your post. It’s the best writing skill you can use to write successful blog content.

Learn how to write feature stories, do keyword research for search engine optimization and more in our online courses.

The post How to structure a blog post appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

“Always grab the reader by the throat in the first paragraph,” said Time magazine reporter Paul O’Neil. “Sink your thumbs into his windpipe in the second and hold him against the wall until the tag line.”

How do you keep attention from the first paragraph through the tagline? Writing structure makes all the difference in how riveting your story can be.

Just ask Kathleen Sullivan, communication manager at Local Government Federal Credit Union. During my Get Clicked, Liked & Shared workshop, Kathleen reorganized a blog post from the inverted pyramid into the feature structure.

The feature approach convinces lots of people to read your post — and share your post. Plus, it’s a step-by-step structure that shows writers clearly what goes where.

Want to write successful blog content? What can you learn from Kathleen’s original and rewrite?

1. Lead

The job of the lead is to grab readers’ attention and draw them in.

In the original, Kathleen focuses on how the sausage was made … the abstract process behind the findings. Yaaaawn! Who cares about these interviews? Not me!

But Kathleen’s revision gets me, the reader, into the story. Moreover, she sets up a surprising scenario that grabs attention and pulls readers into the piece.

2. Nut graph

The job of the nut graph is to tell readers where you’re taking them.

Inverted pyramids don’t include nut graphs, so Kathleen’s original story skipped this element too.

But in her revised blog post, Kathleen encapsulates the main point in one quick, informal sentence:

3. Background section

In the background section, give readers information they need to know before they dive into the body of the story. That might be a definition, bit of context or history lesson.

But background is also known as blah-blah. Don’t let blah-blah get between your readers and your story: Keep this to one short paragraph.

In her original version, Kathleen delivers too much background, at 270 words.

And it’s too technical: Adaptive regulation? A combined perceptive and cognitive integration of emotions? Correlated to a positive orientation? Negative early engagements? No, thank you!

Kathleen’s revised background section is still a little long for my taste. But at 109 words, it’s 60% shorter than the original.

Her words are also shorter — about 10% shorter — and easy to read and understand. Now it sounds as if she’s telling me about this story on the elevator on our way to lunch.

Even better: It’s about me!

4. Body

The body is where you develop your story.

In Kathleen’s original, the meat of the story — the tips — are buried under 296 words of abstraction.

Plus, do’s and don’ts usually have a format: DO do this. DON’T do that. But instead, Kathleen used nouns. Those aren’t tips.

In her revision, Kathleen gets to the meat of the story faster and adds more detail. She also formats the tips as tips, not as things:

5. Wrapup

The job of the wrapup is to draw to a conclusion. Do you have a call to action? It goes here.

Here’s Kathleen’s original, packed with technical language:

Her revised piece is shorter and easier to read:

6. Kicker

The job of the kicker is to end with a bang, to leave a lasting impression.

Inverted pyramids don’t include kickers, so Kathleen’s original doesn’t, either.

But in the revision, she ends with a bang in a concrete, creative provocative final paragraph. Notice how she comes full circle back to the top.

So what’s the best blog post structure?

Writing structure is such one of the most important writing skills. Before you start writing a blog post or other social media piece, spend a few minutes organizing it into this structure.

Whether you’ve just started blogging or are already a pro:

• Start your content marketing piece with keyword research.
• Use the feature structure.
• Optimize your copy so search engines can find you.

Whatever your topic, create a blog post that keeps readers riveted from the first paragraph to the last line.

The post What’s the best blog post structure? appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

Here’s the good news: You already know how to organize your copy.

Just think back to what your third-grade English teacher taught you. Most pieces of writing have three sections:

1. Introduction: the beginning
2. Body: the middle
3. Conclusion: the end

That makes writing a feature story as easy as 1-2-3.

Feature structure works well for blog posts, social media posts and other types of content.

A fill-in-the-boxes structure

Draw these three sections on a piece of paper, and your piece of content looks like this:

OK, so it’s not quite that easy. Because each of those sections has its own parts.

So what goes into each box?

Introduction

The introduction has three parts: the lead, the nut graph and a background section.

1. Lead

The lead’s job is to grab attention and pull readers into the piece. The best way to do that is to write a lead that’s concrete, creative and provocative.

In one of my favorite befores-and-afters ever, here’s a lead by Elizabeth Tadman-Kickham, a communication specialist for Strathcona County, Canada, before applying the feature-style story structure:

But by the end of my Catch Your Readers Master Class, Elizabeth had totally rewritten her piece. Here’s that lead after mastering this approach:

Nut graph

Once you grab attention in the lead, you need to tell readers where you’re taking them. Do that in the nut graph, where you put the story into a nutshell.

There’s no nut graph in the before example, because there’s no nut graph in an inverted pyramid.

The nut graph in the after version puts the story into a nutshell:

Background section

The background section — aka the blah blah — is the boring but necessary information in the story. It might include broader context, a definition or a history or trend.

Keep the background to the third paragraph. Don’t let it bubble up to the lead.

Elizabeth Tadman-Kickham’s original story didn’t have a background section. Inverted pyramids don’t have them, and she’d used up all of her background in that (definition) lead.

Here’s the background section in her rewrite:

Body

In the body, you build out the story into clear, logical parts. To help web visitors find what they’re looking for, label the parts with subheads or bulleted lists with bold-faced lead-ins.

Here’s the body of Elizabeth Tadman-Kickham’s original piece:

Her rewrite is much tighter and invites readers in:

Conclusion

The conclusion has two parts: a wrapup and a kicker.

Wrapup.

In the wrapup, you will call readers to action or summarize the key message.

Elizabeth Tadman-Kickham’s original wrapup:

Her revision is a bit more streamlined:

Kicker.

To leave a lasting impression, go with a kicker that’s concrete, creative and provocative.

The great thing about inverted pyramids is that when you get to the end, you just stop typing. That’s why Elizabeth Tadman-Kickham didn’t include a kicker.

But features require an ending. Here’s the kicker from Elizabeth’s rewrite:

This to me is the least satisfying part of Elizabeth’s rewrite. I wish instead she had circled back to the top and quoted Florence Storch, that 101-year-old woman who’s running around with a pointed stick and knows how to use it. Maybe something like:

How to organize content

Regardless of which social media platforms you use or where you publish content, make the feature structure part of your content creation process. It’s one of the best content marketing strategies there is.

The post How to organize content [Example!] appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

It was a good story: More than 1,000 New Englanders would soon have safe, decent, affordable places to live, thanks to the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston’s Affordable Housing Program.

But PR convention demands that we reduce good stories to hierarchical blurtations of fact. And that’s what Mark Zelermyer, the bank’s vice president and director of corporate communications, did with the first draft of his news release covering the story.

But by the end of my NOT Your Father’s News Release Master Class, Mark had totally rewritten his release, taking the story from blah to brilliant. What can you learn from his before and after?

Get a refresher on the feature-style structure.

1. Headline and deck

Mark started out focusing on “us and our stuff”:

FHLB BOSTON AWARDS $30.3 MILLION FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING THROUGHOUT NEW ENGLAND

48 Initiatives Will Result in More Than 1,000 Units in Six States

But his rewrite focuses on the impact, not on the event, of the program.

MORE THAN 1,000 NEW ENGLANDERS TO GAIN AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston Awards $30.3 Million to 48 Projects

2. Lead

In his first draft, Mark crams all of the W’s into a fact pack lead:

The second version shows instead of tells, focusing on specific details about the program’s outcomes. That pulls readers into the story, and it communicates better than a wall of abstraction. Plus, at 24 words, it creates a bridge into the story instead of an obstacle to reading:

3. Nut graph

Mark didn’t write a nut graph for his traditional news release, because inverted pyramids don’t have nut graphs. But in his revision, Mark puts the story into a nutshell in a short nut graph:

4. Background section

In the first draft, Mark gives some context in the quote, then shares perhaps more background information than anyone who doesn’t work at the bank cares to know about how the program works:

In the second version, Mark streamlines the “how it works” section into a short paragraph, then follows up with the context in a more manageable quote:

5. Body

The juicy details are buried in the body of Mark’s first version:

The following communities will benefit from FHLB Boston AHP funds:

The body in the revision covers just the facts of importance to people — and, OK, Google — who may be seeking information about housing in their own communities:

6. Wrapup

Mark ends with a call to action in each version:

But wait! There’s more …

In addition to making his story more compelling, Mark also make it more than 30% more readable. To do so, he:

• Slashed the length of the lead paragraph by 70%
• Cut word count by 37%
• Streamlined sentences by 25%
• Reduced passive voice by 77 percentage points

It’s no surprise that Mark suggested we change the name of our PR-writing Master Class to “The News Release Makeover.”

The post What’s the best news release structure? appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

When you organize your copy logically, readers can read it more easily and get more out of it.

Or so says Bonnie J. F. Meyer, Ph.D., professor of Educational Psychology at Penn State University. She completed a five-year research project for the National Institute on Aging to find out what helped adults understand and remember what they’d read.

One element that made a big difference: the structure of the piece.

Ya gotta schemata

The reason: People have mental frameworks — aka schemata — that they’ve built through experience and instruction. These mental frameworks provide a skeletal structure for organizing information as they read. (Anderson, 1977; Rumelhart, 1975)

The clearer the writer’s framework, the easier it is for readers to place new information into their own schematas. Otherwise, information just comes across as a list of facts, which people can only recall through rote memorization.

Here are three ways, according to Meyers, that you can use structure to help people read your piece faster and remember it longer:

1. Follow a “topical plan.”

People read faster and remember more information that’s logically organized than they do when the same information is disorganized. (Kintsch, Mandel and Kozminsky, 1977)

Help them read faster. In one study, for instance, researchers gave half of the participants 1,400-word narrative passages and asked them to write a summary. The other half read the same information but with the content scrambled.

The summaries were much the same, but the scrambled versions took much longer to read. Readers needed the extra time to unscramble the content.

Help them remember longer. In another study, junior college students read two texts. Then they wrote down whatever they remembered, first right after reading, then again one week later.

Those who recognized and used the author’s structure to organize their memories retained far more content. They remembered the main ideas especially well, even a week later, and recovered more specific details, as well.

Those who didn’t use the author’s structures made disorganized lists of seemingly random ideas and couldn’t recover either the main ideas or the details very well. (Meyer, Brandt and Bluth 1980)

Think like a tree and leaf. Meyer proposes a tree-like structure of “nested hierarchies.” Put your main topics at the top, then drill down to more details in the branches. Here’s her structure for a piece about problems with oil tankers and four solutions:

Five structures. For the upper levels of the tree, Meyers suggests, you’ll probably use one of five structures:

The descriptive plan, the one used by newspapers, is least effective at helping people remember, according to Meyer’s early research. In two studies, participants were more likely to remember information from comparative and antecedent/consequence pieces than from descriptive stories — both immediately after reading and again a week later.

Using a solid structure is always essential. But it’s particularly important if you’re writing to younger readers, adults with lower reading skills and people who are unfamiliar with the subject.

2. Show the parts.

Average students remember more from stories that include “signaling” devices — display copy and transitions — than from those that don’t. Better students don’t need the signals as much, Meyer says; worse students may be lost no matter what help the writer gives them. (Meyer 1979)

So once you’ve organized your copy, use formatting and display copy to clarify the structure and hierarchy of your piece. Try:

• Headlines
• Subheads
• Underlining
• Italics
• Bold face

3. Show the relationships among and between facts.

The other type of signaling is within the text. Signaling includes:

• Previews, introductions
• Summaries
• Topic sentences
• Transitions

These signals remind readers what kind of structure they’re reading.

“If we encounter thus, therefore, consequently and the like, we know that the next statement should follow logically from whatever has already been presented,” Meyer says.

“If we see nevertheless, still, all the same or the like, we must be prepared for a statement that reverses direction.”

Help readers remember. In one study, a group of junior college students read a problem-solution piece about supertankers that included transitions. Another group read the same piece with the signaling deleted.

The deletions had no effect on the ability of the best or worst students to remember what they’d read. But those signals did make a difference for average readers. With the signaling, the average folks remembered more and organized the information better. (Marshall 1976, Meyer 1975)

Let form follow function. The structure and signals you choose will affect your readers’ understanding of the piece.

• Big picture: In one study, half of the participants read a comparison piece that signaled the structure with transitions like in contrast. Half read the same copy but without the structural cues. Those who got the signaling devices remembered the causal and comparative relationships but few of the details.
• Little picture: In another study, half of the participants read a time-ordered piece with transitions like early last century and soon after that. The other half read the same piece without the transitional phrases. Those who saw the transitions remembered the details very well but not the comparative and causal logic.

What do you want your readers to learn and remember? Let that goal drive your structural choice.

___

Source: Bonnie J. F. Meyer, “Reading Research and the Composition Teacher: The Importance of Plans, College Composition and Communication, Vol. 33, No. 1 (February 1982), pp. 37-49

The post Organize messages for readable writing appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

The feature-style story structure attracts 300% more readers and increases reading by 520%, according to an A/B test by Groove HQ.

Simply adding an anecdotal lead — the team didn’t change any other content — caused nearly three times as many people to scroll to the bottom of the post. It also increased time on page by more than five times.

Alex Turnbull, founder and CEO of Groove, suggests, among other things:

• Starting with a scenario
• Adding dialog to an anecdote
• Focusing on emotions

____

Source: Alex Turnbull, “The Power of Storytelling: How We Got 300% More People To Read Our Content,” Buffer, March 22, 2016

The post Why is structure important in writing? appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..