Designing a website Homepage

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ON-LINE ENG 121

Dr. David B. Axelrod

(Suffolk County Poet Laureate)

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Designing a website Homepage

(Refer to required textbook Chapter 15.)

HERE'S A SERIOUS DIFFICULTY I HAVE YET TO DEBUG REGARDING THIS ASSIGNMENT: You can only choose this option if you have a way to publish your website/design to an active site where I can view it. (Otherwise, please do the option to design a brochure.)

SENDING ME YOUR WEBSITE/HOMEPAGE: Unless you can actually publish your website/design on-line for me to view--and send me the link to it--formatting is likely to be a problem, even if you use a "standard" program. I've mention elsewhere that I use Microsoft Word which also allows the composition of web pages and their conversion to hypertext. I compose my own web pages in Frontpage for courses and personal use. More recently I have been learning Dreamweaver. I long ago gave up most of my efforts to write the actual html "code" so don't even go there. You'll be way ahead of me at this point!

If you send me your pages as simple documents, the formatting may not be preserved. Hence the real product can't be evaluated. So, again, ONLY DO THIS OPTION IF YOU CAN PUBLISH THE WEBSITE AND SEND ME THE LINK!

Best of all, you will send me a link which can open your web creation. You could also send me an "interactive" page which will allow me to see sub-directories or links you include on your homepage.

If you aren't technically proficient, you may not be up to doing this option. I recommend that you do this only if you can literally publish your website for me to view!

That said, I hope you do this assignment/option and enjoy!

If you believe recent advertisements, a business without a website is not a successful business. More and more individuals are also using websites to share their interests and activities.

If you chose this assignment, you should strive to design a website that is graphically interesting. The copy you write (headlines, text) should make your purpose clear as well as "sell" your product. Whether you simply wish to make family photos and information available or actually sell a commodity, the ingredients of good advertising, appealing design, easily followed instructions and inclusive information should all apply.

While your textbook advises and instructs on the state of the art, there are certainly ample resources for building a website. Your own expertise and abilities may vary greatly but if you look at various sites you can discern what you like! Short of simply copying a website (CAUTION: Plagiarism! Copyrighted materials!) you can use a favorite site as a guide. You write the copy for your own purposes. How much you can do with the technical aspects will vary greatly. Some of you will simply write convincing information. Others, more adept at layout or equipped with computer expertise and equipment, may go so far as to use complex components in your design.

If you have or plan to get a website of your own, clearly you can submit it as a source of credit. You will, however, be asked to do a job suitable for college credit and in conformity with the objectives of the course! You may be asked to revise and make changes. It isn't "cheating," however, if you send me your own website which you may already have designed and published to the web.

HERE'S A HINT: the first words you write on your homepage are what others will find if your website comes up on a search engine. After the title of your website, be sure to write exactly what you think will make others visit your website. Get right to the point. Those few words are critical hypertext which will come up in searches and bring others to your page.

Here is my own college website from which you can access a number of homepages for my literary activities and my other courses: http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/axelrod I would hope that link, itself, is a good model for you. Each course has a homepage of its own. Perhaps the best models I've been able to create so far (with my own "plug and play" approach using Microsoft Frontpage) are:

http://www.writersunlimited.org

and http://www.poetrydoctor.org