Most important Web Style Rule

It was very hard for me to come up with one rule that was more important that any other. After looking over websites that others in the class created I realized there was one web style rule that should always be followed: Don't use black or dark backgrounds and light text.

Lynch and Horton's Web Style Guide says, "Subtle pastel shades of colors typically found in nature make the best choices for background or minor elements. Avoid bold, highly saturated primary colors except in regions of maximum emphasis, and even there use them cautiously." I agree that pastel colors with a Dark text are best. Pastels are pleasant to look at on a webpage because they are soft colors. Bright colors hurt to look at them on the computer for too long.
In Spiderpro's 100 do's and dont's of web design they say, "Dark backgrounds tend to make text less readable. So avoid darkcolors or dark backgroundimages. If you do need them, use a
nonserif font for the text (like Arial, Universe, Helvetica) and be sure to not to use a small fontsize."

There are times when a dark background is appropriate. If designed without too much text and the right fonts dark backgrounds can look nice. However, I feel that for the average web designer dark backgrounds should be avoided at all costs.

Written Style vs Web Style

After reading Spiderpro's 100 do's and don't and Lynch and Hortons web style guides, it became apparent that know style guidelines for writing can be useful in creating a website.

Spiderpro's guide starts out by saying do know your audience. In any writing whether online or not it is important to know who you are writing for. You don't want to put information in a text or on a website that is not useful to the intended readers.

Another style that fits both texts andwebsites is to not over write. I wrote about this style rule for my Style Rules essay. I believe that less is more when it comes to words. People like me do not want to see wordy books anymore than they want to see a wordy website. A website needs to be much shorter than a text would, though. The reason for this is because sometimes people want information quickly when they are searching the web. People also don't like having to scroll to read their information. Lynch and Horton say, "Dense text documents without contrast and visual relief are also harder to read".

There are many guidlines that apply to webpages that do not apply to traditional written texts. For instance a web designer needs to take into consideration the capacity of his or her readers computers. Since not everyone has the same computer, operating system, or monitor sometimes webpages won't look the same to everyone. One person may have a computer capable of picking up millions of colors while the next three people have computers that only recognize 256 colors. When writing an essay or a book this is not necessary since each page will be printed out exactly the same for every reader.

Websites also need to be visually appealing. According to spiderpro dark colors do not work well on websites. The writer of an essay, newspaper, or book doesn't need to be concerned with visual appeal because they are all black and white.

McCloud Part 2

I went to Amanda's blog where she discusses a comic called Piercing by David Gaddis. This comic has no words only pictures. Amanda tells us that it is up to the reader to interpret just what is happening in the story and the amount of time that has passed. She discusses Scott McCloud's book Understanding Comics; a book that discusses the parts involved in creating a comic. In Amanda's blog she mentions a section of McCloud's book where he talks about frames and the time sequences created with framing.

I would like to discuss a completely different aspect of this comic: color. It is very hard to figure out what this comic is about, but i feel that the color of it plays a part in reading the emotions. McCloud says,
" Suddenly it seemed possible for color to take on a central role. Colors could
express a dominant mood. Tones and modelling could add depth. Whole
scenes could be virtually about color! Color as sensation, color as environment."
I think this is exactly what the purpose of the color in Piercing is doing; taking on the central role. We know that the man feels inferior to others. His charachter is always a soft gray color so he kind of blends in with the background. The woman that he is attracted to is in bright oranges and reds. She stands out. We can tell that she is what the man has his sights on because of this coloring. I think this use of colors in Piercing make it possible for Graddis to create a comic without words. If this comic were entirely black and white we would have an even harder time figuring out what was going on, but because there is color the emotions are presented in a way that the reader can understand without seeing words.

McCloud Blog #1

This Comic can be found at http://www.the-whiteboard.com/ This comic is about paintball in Alaska. The characters are all animals.

In his book Understanding Comics Scott McCloud spends a chapter discussing the space between panels. He calls that space "the gutter" (66). He goes on to say that in the gutter is where human imagination goes to work to make the frames become an idea. McCloud discusses six different types of transistions for "the gutter".

The comic I have chosen seems to employ the the third type McCloud discusses. This is what he calls "subject-to-subject" transitions. The comic creator stays within the idea, but the reader must use some imagination to make the transistions meaningful (70).

Looking at the strip above we can see that the creator has stayed within the scene, but that there is some reader involvement necessary to get from one panel to the next. For instance, in the strip above the racoon is standing outside the building discussing helmet sizes. In the next panel you only see the racoon's tail sticking out the window. The reader has to deduce what happened between panel one and panel two.

The interpretation of what actually happens between the frames is up to the reader's imagination. Reading the dialogue does help. The racoon is saying in the second frame "I just thought of something" so I envision the racoon running to the building in a hurry to find the thing he is talking about in the comic.

I've looked back through several episodes of The Whiteboard and Doc, the creator, seems to use this subject-to-subject in each one. This type of transition is a good way to get across time without creating long story lines.

Strunk and White versus Williams

When I read Strunk and White I thought it was the best book for writers ever written. It was short and easy to read. Then, I read Williams' Style. Williams' book was certainly not easy to read. In fact, it was a little difficult at times. Williams wrote a better book, though, because he told the reader why they should or shouldn't write a certain way. Strunk and White simply told you not to do this and offered a suggestion of what would be better. Williams even says in the very first paragraph that he is going to do this saying, "but I want to do more than just urge writers to...".

Was it intentional that in the first paragraph he wants to urge writers to do more than "omit needless words" and then he wrote an entire chapter on how to write a clear and concise sentence that has 18 clauses? That chapter actually made me crazy. I praised Strunk and White for telling readers to write short concise sentences. Then, along comes another writer who says you can write 50 word sentences and get away with it.

I think Williams also did a better job of discussing style rather than just a bunch of grammar rules. While grammar rules are neccessary in good writing, there is so much more to style than grammar. The two chapters on coherence were definitely my favorites. Creating organized paragraphs are my downfall.

I had mixed thoughts about Chapter 10 of Williams' book. I agree that we should not judge a person based on their dialect. I do not feel that dialect should show in writing unless you are writing a book based on a specific area where the characters need to speak a certain dialect for the book to be realistic. Every language should have a standard for writing that way even if two people have difficulty communicating with spoken word, they can still communicate with written word.

All in all, I think the two books complement each other. They each cover subjects that the other doesn't. Williams offers the history and causes of "bad writing" while Strunk and White merely tell you what is bad writing. Williams closes his book by saying that not all grammar rules are in fact rules. Even good writers break rules that teachers would tell you to never break. Strunk and White, however, just make you feel as though you are a bad writer if you ever break a rule.

Revising with Williams

Original:
"Student Government at EMU is committed to improving the quality of student life on campus. The student body each spring elects a president, vice president and 24 senators who, along with representatives appointed from various organizations, compose the Student Senate. The executive officers and members provide input to the administration of the University to help solve problems and improve programs and services. Student Government also sponsors campus-wide events. The student services office, known as REACT, provides assistance to students with legal, rental or University-related problems."

My Revision:
Student Government at EMU is committed to improving the quality of life on campus. They provide input to University administration to help solve problems and improve services. The student services office, known as REACT, provides assistance to students with legal, rental or University-related problems. Student Government also sponsors campus-wide events.

The Student Senate is composed of a president, vice president, 24 senators and organization representatives. The student body elects the president, vice president and senators each spring. The representatives are appointed by various organizations.

I chose this passage because the sentences did not flow together. It seemed like the writer just wrote four sentences about the student government at random and stuck them together to create a paragraph.

In chapter three of Style:Toward Clarity and Grace, Joseph Williams discusses cohesion of sentences. His main pointis that each sentence should have a topic and that the topic is clear to the reader. He also discusses the difference between a psychological subject and a grammatical subject. The pyschological subject, he says, is the topic of a sentence. Williams also says that often times the psychological subject and grammatical subject are the same(50).

The first sentence of the above paragraph was the topic sentence. The topic is the "quality of student life on campus". The rest of the sentences didn't flow with that topic. The very next sentence had to do with how the members of the student government are appointed.

After reading that student government is committed to improving quality of life readers will most likely ask how. This is answered through the next question: "by providing input". Readers might also be asking themselves what else does the student government do? sponsors campus-wide events. I left in the part about student services, but I wasn't sure if this group was a part of the student government.

How the members of the government are appointed had nothing to do with the topic so I created a new paragraph. Williams says, "at the beginning of a series of sentences, create a reasonably consistent topic string"(52). By putting the information about elections into the same paragraph as the committment of the student government the writer is not creating a reasonably consistent topic string.

Strunk and White: First Impressions

I really like this book. In fact, I like it so much that I am considering buying it for future use as I am currently borrowing it from my local library. If I were following the rules of the book I would not have started the second sentence with the words "in fact". Strunk and White believes this is unnecessary. I disagree with him. I think it makes it makes the previous sentence stronger.

One of the rules in the book that I strongly agree with is to use orthodox spelling. I think one of my biggest pet peeves is misspelled and loosely spelled words. Even if a person is just writing a casual blog, they should spell correctly.

I think the rule that I follow most is: Do not overwrite. I believe texts should be written to the point without added nonsense meant to fill up the page. I rarely read novels because they are usually filled with pages and pages of adjectives and other nonsense. It bores me to read books written in that fashion.

When reading the book I didn't see too much that seemed out of date. Perhaps my ideas of grammar rules are out of date. I did see one particular word that he preferred people not use contradict an earlier rule.

The book says that instead of using the word currently is redundant and that one should use a more precise reference of time. The example used is:

We are currently reviewing your application
We are at this moment reviewing your application

The latter sentence being the preferred sentence. This, however, contradicts the rule: Omit needless words. currently and at this moment mean the same thing. So according to his first rule we should omit needless words. These words would be at this moment. We could replace those words with currently and say the same thing.