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Would you be able to write any better with Big Brother looking over your shoulder? It’s worth a try.

George Orwell, the man who described Big Brother (pictured) and Room 101 in his apocalyptic novel 1984, left budding pensmiths some handy pointers as to how to write.

Orwell’s 12 Writing Tips are taken from his book Politics and the English Language and still make sense today …

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:

> What am I trying to say?
> What words will express it?
> What image or idiom will make it clearer?
> Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

And he will probably ask himself two more:

> Could I put it more shortly?
> Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

One can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

> Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
> Never use a long word where a short one will do.
> If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
> Never use the passive where you can use the active.
> Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
> Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

So, there you go. If it worked for Winston Smith, it can work for you.

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In a recent post on Roger Johansson’s excellent 456 Berea Street site, the subject of Content Management Systems (CMS) and accessibility is discussed.

I have recently been involved in the selection of a CMS and accessibility was at the forefront of the decision-making process. Regular visitors to this site will notice just how much I bang on about the subject, but it is important.

Roger’s post is more about the accessibility of CMS user interfaces (UI) than the accessibility of code produced by CMSes; however, it was painfully obvious that most modern commercial CMSes aren’t geared up for accessible code output.

One of the main contenders I examined was Microsoft’s “state-of-the-art” MOSS 2007 which, suprisingly for a “bleeding edge” web 2.0 CMS, seemed to have very little accessibility built in. In the normal course of events, Microsoft often wait until Service Pack 2 before providing a complete product, so the current offering is a little underfeatured, but it was quite shocking to be told by a Microsoft developer that they had written “modifications” to MOSS2007 which produced the “first accessible website in the UK using MOSS2007″.

Very few [CMS developers] seem to actually understand what accessibility (or web standards, for that matter) is

— Roger Johansson, 456bereastreet.com

Perhaps it’s not so difficult to understand Microsoft’s arrogance about accessibility. After all, this is the company who said in 1994 they had no plans to produce a web browser and then swiftly changed their mind when they saw how Netscape was cornering the market. They’re big. They don’t follow trends, they set them!

In fact, only one of the candidates we examined had anything near an appreciation of accessibility issues, including an accessibility checker function to scan for the most obvious issues: Ektron’s CMS400.

Personally, I believe there are two major reasons for the lack of attention to accessibility in current CMS platforms: accessibility is labour-intensive to get right; CMS developers don’t understand just how important it is.

Accessibility is labour-intensive: It’s quite a difficult process tagging content (and layout) to make it accessible, not least because much of the accessibility standard is contradictory.

CMS developers don’t understand: Everyone thinks of the internet as being young and fresh and innovative, especially because much of the industry is composed of young and fresh (and cheap) designers and programmers and account executives. In reality, the fastest growing markets are among the so-called “Silver Surfers” with time on their hands and money to spend. Coupled with this is the fact that as a result of falling birthrates, the demographic is changing to favour the oldies with their poor eyesight, low technical grasp and nostalgic hankerings.

I’m sure it will all change, not least because accessibility goes hand in hand with the “semantic web“; the ability to use one set of code on an infinite number of browser platforms. It’s a happy coincidence that the theory that says code should work equally well on your laptop as your iPhone means that it also works on your JAWS screen reader for the visually impared.

And I’m not being PC, it’s not just blind people who use screen readers!

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English is the world’s favourite language (only Mandarin is spoken by more people but most of them live in one country so it doesn’t really count) and so — it is said — that’s why Brits won’t learn a “foreign” tongue. They don’t NEED to.

But it would be wrong to think that there is only ONE type of English: American.

In fact, while there are 800 MILLION speakers of English worldwide, very few of them speak the home-grown version. As a native english speaker, it would be best to remain aware of this.

(Incidentally, cross-cultural expert Neil Payne of Kwintessential, says that English is now spoken more by “foreigners” than those in the UK, the US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada combined, which makes natives a definite minority!)

I used to work for TIME magazine’s web site. Sure, we were an American magazine based in the UK, but it was drummed into us each and every day that we were a European title with reach into the Middle East and Africa. Big Brother may be exploding and the London Underground hotter than midday on Venus, but what did that mean to a Turkish plasterer stuck in a tailback on a German autobahn.

It may sound terribly PC, but you will do well to remember the sensibilities of the people you come into contact with, not just in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, but those in Asia, South Pacific and the Americas (North and South). So in writing online content avoid local colloquialisms and try to respect other peoples’ cultures, customs, pronunciation and even given names.

Think GLOBAL!

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There are many ways of getting content on your site but the simplest of all is to write it yourself.

By the age of 10 most of us think we have writing cracked. And by the age of 20, we’re generally convinced we could write a novel … if only we had the time.

Actually, most people get writing wrong. They lose sight of the reason for it: to convey information in the absence of speech. And it’s the speech bit that’s important. Generally, if you’re writing to someone it should be like you were talking to them. The worst offences are found in letters to companies or unknown third parties. When you’ve read a lot of these, you begin to realise just how stilted people become when they write it down; it’s all: “I refer to my letter of the third inst, etc.” and “I was proceeding in a westerly direction …”.

In a previous guise I was letter editor for a Sunday newspaper and it was plain to see how people just lost it when it came to putting their thoughts down on paper.

Better to think how you’d get your point across if the intended recipient were standing in front of you. Use everyday language, simple sentences. Break long paragraphs into handy bitesize chunks. And always read out what you’ve written to yourself: out loud if possible. You’ll be surprised how often you use words in print that you’d never dream of letting slip past your lips in the course of everday speech. Indeed some people seem to strain a gut to trot out words which are difficult, overly precise and often inappropriate. The best thing about written communication — and that includes online — is that (most times) you get a chance to edit what you say before you say it.

There are ways to show how “readable” things are: you’ll find a readbility analyser at this link. With the Flesch-Kincaid (English) scale a high score implies an easy text: comics typically score around 90 while legalese can get a score below 10. (Incidentally, this gets a score of 52, but I’m sure you’ll forgive the enormity of my verbosity.)

All this is very important when writing for those whom English is not a first language (and even for some who it is). For most, clean, clear, understandable english is not hard to write. It may even save you some effort and lots of trips to look up those long words in the dictionary.

What follows is an example of how to get it wrong. This letter was sent by an employee of a British multinational company to a potential customer. I print it exactly as it was sent, although names and other identifiable information has been disguised.

Dear Sir,

In regards to our conversation, to [REMOVED] Plan, This package has just been Launched. The [REMOVED] plan consists of bringing together all your products together,in the one package,to one bill,

Mr X, the [REMOVED] Plan s, Committed spend is £500 a year on this product, due to the spend all the products that you have threw [REMOVED], Lines, calls and Broadband go towards the committed spend of £500 (eg) You currently have all products threw [REMOVED], consists off bringing them together to the one bill.

Linerental - 1 Line - £41:15 a quarter (each line) £164 a year
Broadband - commiteed spend (eg) £30.00 a MNTH - £360 a year ( which your Making)
Calls - what ever your committed spend is on calls ( Landline calls)

As you can see Mr X, You are making the committed spend in the year , due to having this package we can place your call package at a great competive price.

Any Local or national calls that you make will be 2.6ppm after 2 mins on the call, it will call cap at 5p up to one Hour so you will not pay anything more than 5p for a Local or national call for 1 hour.

Any Mobile calls that you make from your landline will be placed at 10ppm after 2 mins on the call will be placed at a call cap at 25p up to 1 hour, so you will not pay more than 25p for a mobile call up to 1 hour anywhere in the UK to your 4 main networks ( 02,Vod,Orange.t-mbile)

Also all the International calls are also capped attachment above in more detail

Also at the end of the annual year you will recieve 5% Rebate back of all the the produts in the [REMOVED] Plan (Lines, Calls , Broadband 15%)

Also Place FREE CALL DIVERSION

Now due to are new Product The [REMOVED] Plan there will be a slit change to your account the only changes are, a better package for the calls that your currently on, and you will receive more discounts and beneifits and everything will be more easier in the One Bill. (2year contract)

So Mr X you currently have 1 line and Broadband threw [REMOVED], When you move your calls over today on the call capping Facility that gives you the best call capp in the UK at the moment. When moving your calls over today i would place all three off them products into the one package to the one bill with the calling capping Facility and more discounts and benefits that you are currently not receiving, NOW CAN YOU SEE THE MONEY THAT YOU LL SAVE

Also there has been an independent survey carried out by [REMOVED] showing that [REMOVED] are now up to 30% cheaper than other licensed operators.

If you wish to Have the [REMOVED] Plan email me Back and i ll do the rest for you , All the information i would need is your [REMOVED] Linerental Number and the Broadband Account Numner, all this is on the [REMOVED] Website

If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me. I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards

Good heavens, that’s what spellcheck was invented for!

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