Writing tips for easy reading

Our mission is to create valuable content informing readers about aging and longevity. Our content aims to inform and engage. The tone of voice should be trustworthy, understanding, and friendly. One way to think about content is that the wiki should feel like getting advice from a friendly scientist. This document provides tips for creating high-quality content for the Wiki.

General Writing Tips

1. Engage the reader

We want people to visit the Wiki, find their answer, then continue reading because it's so damn engaging. First: capture their attention immediately by creating captivating content in the introduction. Organic visitors from search results are looking for answers, fast. Imagine what question brought them to our page (their search intent).

2. Inform the reader

Stay current. In general, avoid resources that are more than 5 to 7 years old. If you can only find older studies, make note of it in the text. Show your research with citations. Remember that we're being a 'smart scientist friend', not a student.

3. Keep the writing simple and accessible:

Simplify the language, and emulate Wikipedia.

• Lower reading level: Aim to write to around an 8th-grade level for non-technical content.
• Use short sentences (when possible) and vary sentence lengths.
• Don't use long words where short words will work. (E.g. use "so", not "therefore").
• Use simple sentences. Use less dependent and relative clauses.
• Use an active voice.
• Use clear topic sentences to begin paragraphs.

4. Utilise a balanced level of technical detail

Balance technical and non-technical content. We are aiming to provide comprehensive material, that is accessible to a wide audience. Where possible, avoid technical terminology unless it is absolutely necessary. If you are introducing technical details, attempt to convey the content simply in a couple of sentences before this. 

5. Keep the target audience in mind

We are aiming to produce content that will be relevant to users of Longevity Wiki. These include:

• People interested in extending their own lives and improving their health.
• Scientists who are new or familiar with longevity science.
• Doctors who are interested in this emerging field.
• Students at school or university level who are researching this topic.

Ensure that that the content is written with these target audiences in mind.

6. Add images and figures

Images, diagrams, and figures are a great way to convey information and should be included in all articles. Find the most appropriate visuals to accompany your written piece – these include graphs, scientific diagrams, charts, and so on.

7. Subheadings

Use your best judgement to create headings and subheadings as required. Look at articles on Wikipedia as examples of how to do this.

User Experience (UX) Tips

We like the content on Longevity Wiki to be easy to understand. Here are 3 writing tips from the field of User Experience (UX) that can help you when writing an article:

1. Keep in mind the target audience

The target audience for the Longevity Wiki is pretty big: from people with only a high school education who are interested in health to seasoned biomedical researchers with a Ph.D. By making sure your article is not too complex, all readers will be able to understand it.

The maximum difficulty level you should aim for is similar to that of Wikipedia. It’s ok to explain concepts in detail, but you don’t want to go as deep as in a scientific journal article. Furthermore, we prefer plain language over jargon and simple sentences over complex ones.

2. Support scanning

UX research has shown that people online primarily scan, rather than read. You can support this behaviour by doing the following in your article:

• Use clear, noticeable headings and subheadings to break up content and label sections so that people can scan to find what they’re most interested in
• Place information up front (also called “front-loading”) in the structure of your content, as well as in subheadings and links, to allow people to understand the message quickly while scanning
• Use formatting techniques like bold text and bulleted lists to allow the eye to focus on the most important information
• Use plain language to keep content concise and clear

3. Use specific link labels

If you include links in your article, making them specific will help with the findability, scannability and accessibility of the content. Your link label should set up an accurate expectation of where the user is going. For example, instead of writing: ‘To learn more about Rapamycin, click here’, write ‘Learn more about Rapamycin’.

More UX writing tips can be found at the Nielsen Norman Group.

Technical Writing Tips

1. Spelling

• Use American spelling. Commonly misspelled words:
  • Health care
  • Realize/analyze/organize
  • Center
  • Color
  • Estrogen
  • Diarrhea
  • Signaling
  • Glycemia 
  • Side effects

• Use roman numerals when mentioning the phase of a clinical trial (ex. Phase III).
• Avoid starting a sentence with a number (i.e., instead of “55 people were included in the study”, write “The study included 55 people”).
• Numbers nine and below should be written out, while numbers above nine should be written as numerals (ex. “He had three cats.” vs “She had eleven fish.”)
  • Exception: All numbers should be written as numerals when associated with a unit of measure (ex. “His cat weighed 8 lbs.”)

2. Punctuation

• Use the oxford/serial comma (ex. Rapamycin has been shown to extend the healthy lifespan in worms, yeast, flies, and mice).
• Abbreviated titles should have a period after (i.e., Dr. Jones, Mrs. Jones, Ms. Jones).
• Bullet points should have a period at the end if they are a complete sentence.
• Figure titles/captions should have proper punctuation.

3. Formatting

• The reference should come after the period.
• Ensure every image/figure has a caption/description.
• Define acronyms at first mention (ex. Rapamycin was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1994).
• Ensure there is a space between the number and unit of measurement (ex. 5 mL, 27 IU/kg)
• Ensure there is a space between the greater than/less than symbol and the number (ex. “People with diabetes have a fasting plasma glucose level ≥ 7.0 mmol/L”)
• Use a comma (not a space) in numbers larger than 1000 (i.e. “25,700”)

4. Miscellaneous

• Use patient-centric language (i.e., instead of “Schizophrenic people often have impaired cognition”, say “People with schizophrenia often have impaired cognition”)
  • Other examples: diabetics, obese people