Brewed Fresh Daily

A great deal has been written over the last few years about the need for brevity on the Web. Whether Web writing has improved as a result is debatable, but one thing is certain: the word has gotten out. These days one can't gather three people in a room to plan a Web site without someone's sounding off about the need for brevity. That's a good thing. Our collective consciousness has been raised. But there are at least two downsides to this Web-brevity mania. First, perhaps following Newton's third law, it has at times caused the opposite reaction in print. It is as if writers, reeling from the constraints imposed by the Web, can't help but pour forth in print. Second - and far worse - it has put the cart before the horse: brevity has begun to supersede clarity in importance in our eyes. Striving for brevity isn't enough. We need to write tight.