ENGL 293
Writing for the World Wide Web

Bemidji State University
Dept. of English
M C Morgan, Assoc. Professor of English
mmorgan@bemidjistate.edu

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Tools

• WWW Unleashed, support for the text.
• BSU Policies and Guidelines. Students of ENG 293 are expected to be familiar with and act by the current BSU Web Policies and BSU General Computer Use policies available online at /academics/colleges/arts_and_letters/Classroom/Policies/Index.html. Violation of the BSU General Computer Use policies may result in an E for the course.
• ENGL 293 Web Server How-To's and Rules

Web Style Guides & Advice

• Yale C/AIM WWW Style Manual, version 1.
• Yale C/AIM WWW Style Manual, version 2.
• Sun's Guide to Web Style. A thorough site design manual that can walk you through planning a site. Offers advice on copyright and netiquette.
• A Web Developer's Style Guide. Seems to remain as current as possible, adding material as fast as novelties appear.
• Guide to Good Practices for WWW Authors, Margaret Issacs, University of Glasgow.
• Art and the Zen of Web Sites Reality checks for good design (and writing) - in a single, medium-length page. Not quite on the level of the koan, but useful reminders.
• Web Publishing Paradigms, Tim Guay.
• Example Third Generation Sites [aka Heavy on Graphics] from Creating Killer Web Sites, by David Siegal. Some are more gimmickry than content. Be forewarned: You are entering a web slowdown.

Indexes and Search Engines

• Web Indexes
• Search Engines

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Projects

Early Tours

• How to Read a Home Page
• Sites to See, rev 2.
• Sites to See - old version

First Site: A Home Page

• Example Individual Home Pages
• What to Look for in a Home Page and Home Site: A Checklist
• Home Page Strategies

Tool Box

• Tool Box, Part 1: Collect and Gather
• Tool Box, Part 2: Annotate

Critique of a Web Site

• Assignment: Critique of a Web Site, with links to readings and sample critiques.

Second Site: Web Design Project

• Web Site Design Project

Readings

Reading Web Pages and Sites

• How to Read a Page (in progress)
• "Politics and the English Language"

Supplemental Readings

• Annotated List of Readings

Netiquette

• Netiquette
• E-Mail Etiquette
• Some Words on Advertising on the Internet, from Roadmap for the Information Superhighway.
• Spamming on the Internet, from Roadmap for the Information Superhighway.

The Arts of HTML

Although HTML editors have made a deep knowledge of HTML unnecessary for most, advanced web design still demands it. I've included links to HTML guides for your reference.

HTML Guides

• HTML Guide A thorough guide to the markup language, with examples.
• Composing Good HTML More advanced than the "HTML Guide." Addresses writing HTML for multiple browsers. Covers trouble-shooting, absolute and relative references, and problems you might encounter.
• 10 Commandments of HTML Concise guide to the conventions and rules of HTML.
• The Art of HTML If you can't find it in the HTML Guides below, check this site for more.
• HTML Bad Style Page A list of DON'Ts in writing HTML.
• HTML Quick Reference As it is titled, a reference list of tags.

HTML Checkers

• WebSter's Dictionary A Web-based spell checker. Give it your URL and it returns a list of possible misspellings in the page. A neat trick, but to keep web traffic down, wait until everything is pretty much locked in place before you use it.
• Web Lint Checks HTML code.
• Dr. HTML Another HTML code checker.