Academic Writer

academic writer: web writing: credibility

Establishing credibility
If you are credible you are capable of being believed. How is it possible to establish this sense of belief or trust when you are writing for the web? Your reader is probably an absolute stranger, with no way of knowing your background, track record, motivation, etc. Here are some tactics you can consider:
- Tell readers who you are. A site with no name has a lost feeling about it. Does nobody want to take responsibility for it?
- Allow readers to contact you. -Best to put this on the front page. This is of course another way of linking yourself to the wider community.
- Include a 'last updated on'. One of the first things I find myself looking for. If a site has not been updated for two or three years, my feeling is that it isn't very important to its author. Therefore Maintain your site
- Focus on written content, not special effects. Academic readers look for content, not a flashy website
- Link yourself to external sites
As with all academic work, you need to demonstrate your relationship to existing work. Research has shown that readers have more trust in sites with external links, particularly if these links represent different points of view (this makes you look as if you are providing a balanced discussion). So link yourself by standard format citations and describe the academic context in which you are working. But what kind of external sites should you link to?

Academic Writer 2000