If you work in the online content world like I do, you may have run into the term “bite, snack and meal”. This phrase refers to creating content for readers with different appetites for your content. Sally might want to eat the entire dinner, but Mei-Ling just wants a little nibble and Ahmed wants more of a snack. I’ve seen this term thrown around by writers for years – but I recently went looking for the source.
After all, ideas come from somewhere. In this case, I turned up a 2001 Inc. article on the bite, snack and meal by E-Write. And a 2011 book by Charles Marsh et al, Strategic Writing, p.19, said Leslie O’Flahavan and Marilyn Rudick came up with the phrase in a book they wrote in 2002.
I looked up Rudick, O’Flahavan and E-Write. Upon seein Leslie O’Flahavan owns E-Write LLc, I contacted Leslie, who let me know that she started using the term in her courses around 1997 and popularized it through her 2001 article.
I’ll be making sure to cite this wonderful idea in my work – and I’m encouraging others to do the same. As a writer, I know how frustrating it is when others start using your ideas or words. One year, I had to file 200 requests for people to stop infringing on my content. Intellectual property and academic integrity rules still apply to online content.