FAQs should answer questions, not create them

Editors have to check webpages, and that means making sure the FAQs are up to standard. We tell our proofreading course students that well-presented FAQs should:

1. Use short questions: make sure each heading includes only one question, not several.
2. Provide clear, comprehensive answers: there is no point in answers that are hard to understand or that take a long time to read. If a visitor reads an answer but is left with other questions, the answer has failed.
3. Be self-contained: one answer should not link to another.
4. Be written in plain, simple English: for a reading age of around 12.
5. Be well spaced out: so they are easy to follow.

We’ll have more on this subject on the blog next week.

See our proofreading courses