Web writing

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, students will understand the fundamental principles of online writing and will be able to design and produce texts that comply with the principles of usability, readability, and comprehensibility typical of the web. They will also be able to vary their written output according to the objective, audience, and context, with particular attention to social media platforms and search engines. Finally, they will be able to use artificial intelligence tools to produce written content.

Course contents

The writing process and its stages: planning, drafting, revision
The text and the variables to be taken into account in its creation: objective, target audience, context
- The concepts of correctness, appropriateness, and effectiveness
- Principles of web writing: text structures, titles and subtitles, paragraphing criteria, lexical and syntactic choices, use of lists, links, bold type, and images
- Writing (also) for search engines: on-page optimization and SEO copywriting
- Forms of digital writing: reviews, articles, posts, emails, etc.
- For the conscious and ethical use of AI in text production (and beyond)
- Writing with AI: how to enhance the writing process
- Prompt design techniques for written content
- The main AI writing tools

The course can be divided into two parts: in the first part, we will work on writing, from the point of view of the process and the product, without resorting to AI; in the second, techniques and tools for the production of written content with the aid of AI will be illustrated. Around the middle of the course, there will be a mandatory midterm exam, which will contribute to the final assessment as indicated in the section “Assessment and evaluation of learning.” The texts produced during the exercise will be discussed collectively during subsequent meetings, allowing students to develop their linguistic sensitivity and refine their critical and analytical skills.

Reading/Bibliography

At the end of each lesson, the professor will provide students with the educational materials used, which will complement and guide the study of the following textbooks:

• Perini E., Scrivere bene (o quasi). Ortografia, punteggiatura, stile, dubbi, curiosità, Firenze, Giunti, 2018
• Cannavacciuolo A., Manuale di copywriting e scrittura per il web. Teoria, pratica e strumenti per scrivere meglio, Milano, Hoepli, 2018 (Capitoli 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)

Teaching methods

The course is primarily practical in nature. It includes lectures with a strong interactive component, classroom exercises and collective critical discussions of the work produced.

Assessment methods

The final grade will be the arithmetic mean (rounded up) of the following tests:

• a compulsory midterm exam, graded out of XNUMX, which will be held between the halfway point and two-thirds of the way through the course and will consist of writing a text in class on paper, without the use of digital devices;
• a final test, also compulsory and graded out of XNUMX, which will be held during one of the exam sessions and will consist of writing a text in class on a computer, thus allowing the use of artificial intelligence tools.