Your Job
Create a web-based version of the research project you completed for your Honors Essays. Web versions should be 1,500 words (or fewer) in length and enhanced by both images, links, and a list of suggested readings.
Drafts are due in class next week; please bring copies of images, links, and suggested readings with you. Boone Gorges is designing the templates for our course web site, and he'll come to class to walk you through the technical details involved. We're using Movable Type for this, so it should be pretty straightfoward.
Advice
1. Think carefully about audience; revise your essay so that it will appeal to a broad range of smart, curious readers. (The challenge will be achieving this without dumbing down your ideas or research.)
2. Use headings and sub-headings to organize your material.
3. Choose images that will draw readers in AND make sense in terms of themes and content. Place these images strategically.
4. If you want, you can make a downloadable version of your original essay available.
Writing for the Web
Take a look at some of the links below, all of which contain advice for writing for the web. Notice that they give a variety of advice, much of it consistent, some of it contradictory. Think critically about this advice. We will draw on it when we workshop your drafts in class next week. Notice the information they all provide about readers on the web, "chunking" content, and the importance of summary material and sub-heads.
Writing for the Web (Dartmouth University)
Writing for the Web (Penn State)