Three pages for a final report at the university level? Wow. I guess things have changed since I went to school in the States.
OK, so we have around three pages to work with. I can deal with that. You have to realize, though, that three pages is not really enough space to do justice to the topic you've chosen. You probably don't have the time to make radical changes to this paper, but if I were in your shoes I would concentrate on one of the four areas you touch on: content, designer's job, presentation, modern medium (yup, that's singular, since you're talking about the medium of the Internet). Personally, I think the first section ("content is king") is the most interesting and has the most potential. You could easily crank out a good introduction to the issue of content on the web in three pages.
Also, you should be more economical with your words. As it is, you are tossing around words like they're free, but they're not. You have three pages, and you can only fit so many words on those pages. You have to make every word count.
Take your opening sentences, for example:
quote:
Considering philosophy was not something I was inclined to do. Pondering the true nature of architecture sounded less like an assignment and more like a sentence. Yet told to read and write about such things I was and read and write I did until I suddenly realized that I was actually applying, or wondering in what ways I could apply, the principles I was reading about to other facets of the design world. The parallels came quickly, especially between architecture and a field I have quite a bit more interest and experience in: website design.
You're writing a three-page essay, not a book. You don't have the luxury of sitting down in the parlor, leisurely drawing out a finely crafted cigar, sniffing it delicately, then quietly looking out the window at the rolling hills before beginning to speak to the reader. You need to jump right into things and catch their attention right away.
Also, this is an academic assignment. To be perfectly honest with you, profs don't want to hear about what you think about the assignment, they want to hear what you have to say about the subject. Don't try to be clever or literary. That doesn't mean you can't have style, but the voice here is just too casual. Take the following sentence, for example.
quote:
At first glance, architecture and web design may seem to be completely different fields, but they actually have a lot in common.
With that one sentence, you could accomplish what it took you four lengthy sentences to accomplish in the original.
To sum up so far, you have a limited amount of words to work with, and as a result your paper should be both focused and efficient. Words are always valuable, but they are even more valuable when you have so few to work with.
OK, like I said, you probably don't have the time to make such radical changes. There are a few things, though, that you probably will have time to fix:
quote:
I will instead be taking a critical look at what web design is and should be.
I do not intend this essay to teach anyone how to design a ?good? website.
...Instead, it is my goal that when finished, the reader will have an understanding of which basic principles we can attribute to a site?s success or failure.
These sentences just don't jive with me, and they could even be seen as flat out contradictory. "Should be" implies a value judgment, yet in the very next sentence you say that you are not going to be teaching anyone how to design a "good" (value judgment) site. You then reverse gears in the last sentence (which appears a few sentences down in the original) and say that you are going to examine what contributes to a site's success or failure--again implying a value judgment. (Also, you misused "attribute"--you attribute success or failure to basic principles, not the other way around; the principles are the cause of the success/failure.)
Your reference to 58 links in the "top fifth of the page" on Yahoo is troublesome. Screen resolutions vary--how do you know what the top fifth is on someone else's screen? What if they have their fonts set bigger than you? It would technically be possible to make the same space you describe take up the entire browser window. To be safe, just stick with something like "at the top of the page," or use a specific landmark, like "located directly around the search box at the top."
quote:
I was criticized by those trying to teach me for my technique
Ouch. Try: "Those trying to teach me criticized my technique."
quote:
This is the person or persons who is commissioning the site.
"who are commissioning"
quote:
In fact it must focus the attention of the user to the content.
Awkward. "It must cause/force/encourage/etc. the user to focus on the content."
quote:
Then there is the ever-present overall aesthetic. How everything comes together to make a whole.
Sentence fragment. Use an em-dash or maybe a colon (I'd go with the em-dash).
quote:
Websites are a relatively recent phenomena.
"Websites" itself may be plural, but websites as a whole are a phenomenon (singular). Unless you want to argue that each individual website is a phenomenon in and of itself...
quote:
The final thing that websites should be is progressive.
Awkward. Instead: "Lastly, websites should be progressive."
The conclusion leaves me feeling very disappointed. Why the list of cliches? A cliche, by definition, is something that has been bandied about so much that it has lost most (if not all) of its original force. Do you really want to be ending your paper with that?
Those are just a few things I noticed--that's not by any means a thorough job. Unfortunately, I have a paper that I need to write as well, so I'll leave you with this. Remember: tight and focused. Words are like gold--don't waste them.
___________________________
Suho: www.liminality.org
posted 12-09-2003 09:53
