Trip Report writing styles

[Wandering Daisy]

It is hard to find that happy medium in trip reports - not to wordy as to loose people but not so short that it gives little information. A lot of "errors" do not bug me at all, such as spelling (hey, I am terrible at that), grammar in general, even "boring" writing style. But regardless of detail, length, humor injected (and yes lots of photos!) the following immediately stop me from reading the entire report.

Perhaps it is my age (old fashioned) but paragraphs and sentences that start with a capital letter and end with a period with a few spaces before the next, entice me to continue reading. I just cannot get through an entire page dense wordage with no paragraphs, everything squished together, without my eyes glazing over after the first two lines. So for those who write like this, have mercy on we old folks, and divide it up into smaller chunks (or paragraphs). I really would love to read your reports!

[c9h13no3]

It's not an old person thing. If you have eyes, you prefer words to be in paragraphs.

Idk, I don't see much harm in people sucking at writing. Just don't read it, or wade through it if you really want the information.

I personally don't write a ton of trip reports. Most stuff has been done, the information is out there if you want it. I find the little brief stuff in the backcountry condition reports most helpful. An umbrella is worth a lot more when it's raining, and timely information is way better than a verbose trip report from a year ago.

[rlown]

Cut and paste and not fixing the flaws is the worst.

[bobby49]

In a trip report, what is valuable to me is a rough map showing the route or the camp sites on a daily basis. Of course I can look up my own map and then follow the trip report wording. However, the map puts it better into perspective.

[MichaelRPetrick]

To be quite honest, I'm mostly there for the pictures, and any advice I can get on that particular route/area if I do it. I only want lots of text if the trip was truly noteworthy or epic... there's nothing wrong with brevity!

[SSSdave]

Will put up with anything as it is mostly just for amusement after all and at most trivial, however I am able to glean conditions information at times if such is a place of potential future visits. What lacks minimal communication are reports with lots of dumped in pictures that have few or no captions or descriptions. Conversely the occasional reports without any images are less interesting but hey for the first decade plus that was the way the Internet was.

I do appreciate others that can write well structured reports or more broadly just their posts but have been around enough in corporate work worlds to know such is not common. For decades working in engineering technical support I was often the person engineers gave their draft documents to in order to clean up grammar, spelling, structure, and technical clarity so am aware writing skills are a distinct talent among degreed skills. Many engineers can read technical information while fewer are able to write such, and even fewer are able to verbally communicate whatever face to face. Was a key reason I was so successful in such positions as a peon underling because writing skills are uncommon to the degree most such talents end up in marketing or sales.

I rarely write trip reports on this or other boards because I've already done so for my own web site that I just link to if someone has more interest. The reports on my website are not primarily to entertain others like say a magazine article with a broad audience but rather they are information sources for imagery that at some point in the future I will be doing public 8k display exhibitions on. Thus the value of writing such information and stories down while they are still fresh that will be far more easily verbally expressed and recalled years later.

[ERIC]

It's not an old person thing. If you have eyes, you prefer words to be in paragraphs.

Idk, I don't see much harm in people sucking at writing. Just don't read it, or wade through it if you really want the information.

I personally don't write a ton of trip reports. Most stuff has been done, the information is out there if you want it. I find the little brief stuff in the backcountry condition reports most helpful. An umbrella is worth a lot more when it's raining, and timely information is way better than a verbose trip report from a year ago.

Then, less writing, more photos!

[Wandering Daisy]

Not everyone wants or even needs route advise. I too really enjoy the pictures, as well as just reading about other's experiences. We are lucky to have so many really good photographers on our forum.

[balzaccom]

I love reading this thread--some want more photos, others want captions for all the photos, others care less about the photos and want more specific details on the routes...

I''m happy to read reports that give me a sense of what the trip was like. And if there are serious issues with grammar or endless paragraphs, I just tend to move on. And if there are so many photos that I lose the narrative, or it takes took long to load, I move on.

But that's me. And everyone else will want something else.

The best advice i ever got about writing is that you should have someone specific in mind when you write. Don't write to yourself, but to someone you know. And explain things well enough so that they could understand them.