Whether they read thoroughly or scan is unknown. In addition, children in elementary and secondary schools are reading, searching and creating Web sites. These students are so familiar with this medium that it may become their primary source of information. As a result, training journalists how to write for the Web is crucial. The first principle is to have content worth reading.
Presentation is secondary to worthy content.
Other content that Web readers seek are timely updates, interactivity and links to relevant topics. George Landow, a Brown University professor and hypermedia scholar, writes that when users follow links that are not significantly related to the document they accessed, they feel confused and resentful. Embedding links within the story text will also distract readers by luring them to click and fracture their attention span. A better structure is to place links on the side or at the end of a story, a form used by The New York Times and other major online news sites. But writing for a nonlinear medium requires a different way of planning, organizing and crafting a story.