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Introduction to Writing for the Web for students
This book describes, demonstrates how to apply, and integrates the writing, organizing, and technical skills one needs to produce informative Web sites. To this end, we need to assume the following roles:
A competent media theorist—One who recognizes in what manner a hypertext document both communicates and shapes our understanding of the information it presents to us. This requires a critical knowledge of the communication practices that have been in play in our civilization over the last 2500 years and how they compare to the skill of writing.
A competent technician—One who knows how HTML and CSS work to create electronic documents and who can construct Web sites from scratch with them. All competent writers can extend the reach of what they write by knowing how to apply these technologies. It is important not to be intimidated by these technologies because they are really not that difficult to learn; good writers can become skilled coders and do not always need to depend on other “technicians” or HTML/CSS editors.
A competent rhetorician—One who can identify the rhetorical effects of all texts and how these effects can inform a writer or Web site architect’s decisions about her own work and allow her to become a discerning consumer of other information found on the World Wide Web. A working knowledge of rhetoric supports all of the other skills described in this book.
A competent writer—One who understands what clear and effective writing is and how it can be applied to documents found on the World Wide Web. Being able to encode someone else’s writing and other texts using HTML and CSS for a Web site is one thing, but being able to write well, which means being able to research and describe your own ideas or document the ideas of others with whom you work, is equally important. Additionally, breaking down this information and then organizing it into hyperlinked bodies of text is a role the writer needs to assume.
There are many insightful media theorists, able HTML/CSS technicians, insightful rhetoricians, and lucid writers, but to be able to completely understand and be an effective producer of online information we have to accept the responsibility of becoming competent in all these areas.
As you read the following chapter summaries of Writing for the Web, you will see how these four competencies can be enhanced by this book’s materials:
Chapter 1
Old Media, new media, and knowledge
The purpose of this chapter is to be conscious of how the major communication media that have been in use over the last 2500 years allow us to shape and receive information and knowledge. The spoken word of the ancients, the written word of yesterday and today, and the electronic word that we encounter with contemporary technologies all have distinctive abilities to convey ideas to audiences and to influence the speaker’s or writer’s capacity to understand the ideas she or he works to convey. This is important because as writers and information architects we need to be mindful of the idea that the technologies we employ are not neutral.
Chapter 2
The Internet and HTML
We will learn the basic building blocks of HTML and associated technologies that we need in order to begin formatting, saving, manipulating, validating, and linking written texts and images so we can produce Web site files. We will also use HTML for some simple layout techniques. This will be presented in the context of the history of the Internet, the work of Tim Berners-Lee, and the role of the World Wide Web Consortium or W3C.
Chapter 2: download zip
Chapter 3
Cascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) work in concert with HTML to more precisely define the style values we have been working with and we will learn the basic syntax of this technology. We will apply CSS at the internal, inline, and external level and see how it can modify the style elements of entire Web sites much more efficiently than HTML by itself. Additionally, we will devote a significant amount of time describing how CSS can be used in layout design.
Chapter 3: download zip
Chapter 4
Rhetoric and writing
The content of Web sites is largely based on the written word, and an awareness of rhetoric allows us to tailor our words to meet the needs of our audiences. In this chapter we will learn to apply rhetoric to our writing, identify writing styles most appropriate for the Web, and discuss the use of other resources and how to document them to better present our ideas.
Chapter 5
Layout and organization
Research and writing are rewarding but time consuming tasks, and to make sure that this work is presented well, we start this chapter by describing how we can choose the best typography for our written texts and construct the most effective layout for our Web sites. Additionally, we will describe the organizing strategies that allow us to break down our content into manageable bodies of hyperlinked units to ensure that our audience members can find the information they need.
Chapter 6
Major Web site projects
All that we have discussed in this book in the first five chapters supports the two Web site projects in this chapter. The personal Web site will allow you to represent yourself in a favorable and responsible manner. The second project is an informational Web site and you have two navigation options for it: breadcrumbs or drop menu. Both project descriptions and examples demonstrate how writers can effectively transfer their work to online environments.
Chapter 6: download zip
Resources
Template
HTML templateImages for Exercises
Important links to the World Wide Web Consortium
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)—a non-profit organization—brings Web site architects, HTML/CSS enthusiasts, and representatives from software companies together to see what might be problematic about some of the tags that are used on the Web, and then the W3C suggests changes. HTML 5 and all of the previous versions of HTML and CSS have been developed because of the roll this organization has played.
To keep up on the latest HTML and CSS technology, the W3C Web site is great source:
Here is a link on this site that you can use to validate your Web site coding:
For RGB hex numbers for Web site color choices, use the following W3C Web site: