But How Does It LOOK?

Hello, Readers,
Sorry, but I cannot make the heading colors match :-(


Make Your Document Look Inviting
I like the Japanese proverb, “We eat first with our eyes.” The fact is, we value presentation, whether with food or a document. Here are some tips for making a good impression—making the big picture inviting—before readers actually read a word. You will recognize some tips from earlier posts, but they also belong here to round out this list. Confession: You’ll note that in Blogspot, I can't do some of what I recommend below.

Tips for Paragraphs That Welcome the Reader
1. Write short paragraphs: If you expect folks to read a paragraph, limit it to no more than ten lines in a document and even fewer in a letter or email.

2. Space between paragraphs: The resulting white space makes a document more inviting.

3. Don’t indent paragraphs: When you space between paragraphs, there is no need to indent. Actually, some fancy writers indent only the first paragraph and that’s okay.

Tips for Lists
1. Do make lists! Lists make your document look more accessible and more organized. You can even make a list under a list under a list! Just indent and align them like you would with an outline.

2. In a list, begin with numbers: If you need several levels of lists, begin with numbers. And tab or indent only twice—not the default five spaces. For a second-level list, use bullets, and for a third level, use hyphens or en dashes. With one short list, bullets work well, but they need to be large enough to make a point: consider bold or a larger size.

3. Indent hierarchical lists: Especially with lists followed by sublists, use the outline format and place subsequent lines under the text above. Don't return to the margin (like I had to do here).

General Tips
1. Use ragged right margins: Justified margins really frustrate me. We read in little fixations—words in a phrase that belong together (“of the people”). So having phrases spaced out makes the reading less smooth.

Editors say they can actually see “rivers of white” in justified text. I think it looks like someone randomly pulled teeth. Interestingly, most professionally produced documents use ragged right margins, at least part of the time, including newspapers, magazines, and brochures. I am waiting for electronic books to move in that direction. I note that the larger the text, the more the words are spaced out. And I’d also like to see large-print books use ragged-right margins.

2. Avoid all caps: Readability experts have observed that all capital letters in a text make it more difficult to read. They lack the irregular “coastline” of upper/lower case. Additionally, they take up more space, thus limiting the font size.

In October of this year, New York City applied this insight to all their street signs. At a cost of $110 per sign, the city began changing street signs from all caps to upper/lower case. With 250,900 signs to deal with, the cost to the state is $27.6 million. Their rationale: the new signs “are easier to read, enabling drivers to spend less time with their eyes averted from the road” and thus save lives.

3. Keep related words on the same line: Happily, with a ragged-right margin, you can cheat a little at the end of a line: you never have to type clear to the end. If a word almost fits, but ends up on the next line, you can move the margin a little to the right and keep the word where it belongs. If a word at the end of the line belongs with the phrase on the next line, just send it there. The more conspicuous the document is—in PowerPoint slides or on a poster—the more important this issue becomes. Below is a quote set in the middle of a column followed by my “fix”:

If we can open your mind to laughter, we can slip in a little information.

If we can open your mind to laughter,
we can slip in a little information.

Cartoon captions are frequently guilty. In an all-caps Marmaduke cartoon, his master asks:

HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT BEG-
GING AT THE TABLE?

How many times have I told you
about begging at the table?

4. Use plenty of headings: Yes, I’ve emphasized it before, and you can review this advice is in an earlier blog—“How Readable is Your Document?” Headings provide white space and display organization. They make a document look much more accessible.

5. Attend to the micro stuff: Make “curly” quotation marks and apostrophes your default. For this blog, I had to import what I wanted and copy and paste it each time: Blogspot's only option is to use "Stick" quotes like these. In contrast, you can make the curly kind your default. Additionally, I cannot make em dashes in Blogspot--they remain just two hyphens. However, in Word and most other programs, when you type two hyphens between words without spacing on either side, the hyphens magically turn into an em dash.

Caveat: Friends, it pains me to admit this: in Blogspot, I cannot do all that I suggest in this blog. When I try to do a forced return to put a word on the next line and when I tried to indent to align lists, I created chaos. In fact, an earlier version of this blog was so bad I chose to delete it and begin again. So, it is that old cliche: “Do as I say”—and so will I—in any other circumstance.

Next Time: What About the Passive Voice?