Modern readers are a formidable group of people, they find a piece of information, scan it quickly and if it doesn't add up to what they want, it's discarded and scrapped while they move onto the next prey.

Now of course this isn't a bad thing, but it's also not a good thing if the writer has written valuable information and doesn't know anything about the attack of the diagonal zig-zaggers!

By the time you've read this post you'll know how to tame the zig-zaggers and feed them with only the best information that they want.

How to Write for Diagonal Readers

An average reader will read at around 240 words per minute (WPM). A diagonal reader will read at over 900 WPM. You can now see the effectiveness of the modern reader.

With diagonal readers ripping up bodies of text in mere seconds, what can you do to make sure that your valuable information isn't discarded? You need to learn a few important steps.

 

10 Second Rule

Within the first 10 seconds a diagonal reader will see your title, headlines, subtitles, any bold text, any underlined text, anything quoted, anything highlighted, pictures, graphs and a summary of the content.

Knowing what these modern readers see, you can now devise plans to make sure that your titles, quotes, pictures and everything else listed above is as inviting as possible.

You can learn more about titles from another blog post I've written called how to write perfect titles.

 

Your Body Text

When you're writing your body text there's a few questions you should keep in mind, they are -

1. 1. Are you providing new points or saying the same thing?
   2. It is possible to summarise the point of your article in 2~3 sentences?
   3. Is the point your trying make appropriate?

Answering those questions will allow you to understand what a modern reader wants to see in your body text and lead you to know how you should write it.

Another way to help zig-zaggers read your body text is to add a small summary at the top of the body similar too "by the time you've read this article you would have learned..."

 

Conclusion

Modern readers are out in force everywhere and are on the rise. This is a great thing for the Internet as a whole. It means only quality information has a chance of surviving. I think only quality information should be on the Internet in the first place, that's why I think it's a good thing. I'd love to see comments of your opinions on this.

Zig-zaggers are doing the Internet a favour. Do them a favour by writing your articles and blog posts for them, so you give them the quality information they desire. Believe me, you'll benefit from it.

 

Related Posts

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Craig is a 22-year-old student currently studying psychology at Bournemouth University. He runs a self improvement blog and community filled with useful advice. His main aim is to help people exceed their expectations and reach their true potential. If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via RSS or E-mail.