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Due dates:
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The research hypertext is one of two forms (the other is the research presentation) in which you will present your research to the class and, perhaps, even a broader audience. Your hypertext should consist of a series of interlinked pages, equivalent in scope and research to a 10-15 page research paper on the topic discussed in your research proposal. The final revision should be accompanied by a site map (this can be a link on your website or handed in/posted independently) as well as a 1-2 page reflection letter on the hypertext project as a whole. The hypertext What exactly is hypertext? One scholar defines it in this way:
Hypertexts vary in layout and design, a variation that is often influenced at least in part by differences in purpose & audience: a personal webpage, for instance, has a markedly different purpose and probably a different audience than a commercial website such as amazon.com. For this class, your purpose is to create a research hypertext that presents your research to an academic audience, such as the students in this class. Just as in PWR1 (where you were asked to produce a research argument, rather than a report), here you should produce a text that is analytical and argumentative (i.e. whose pages and relationships between links are designed to facilitate your particular line of inquiry) rather than solely informational (i.e. simply providing information on a topic). The organization of the page is up to you, though probably will follow the outline provided by your visual map (or improve upon it) -- however, all hypertexts should contain
Other elements you may want to include to enhance your hypertext include:
In general, your research hypertext should follow the principles for effective design and persuasive e-rhetoric that we have been discussing this quarter and should be composed of a variety of interconnected links stemming from a central homepage and at least 3-4 central "paths." Remember as you link your texts that your links shouldn't be random: you need to ensure that your reader can follow your argument and intellectual connections behind your links. For this project, we will be writing nodes or pages incrementally over a two week period. In addition, we will be doing extensive in-class peer review. We will also be meeting in conferences as I will be holding extra office hours and lab hours in Wallenberg. You may create your pages in any program that you like -- from Microsoft Word (saving as .html) to Frontpage or Dreamweaver. You can even code it yourself if you like. However -- keep in mind that if you decide to draft in Microsoft word, all your formatting will change (bolding, italics, font, etc) once you paste your text into a Dreamweaver document. If at all possible, you may want to write your draft on a layer in a Dreamweaver document so that the formating you do is preserved. At the end of the project, we will post these hypertexts on-line through our class website (these links will be access-restricted, like the reader, so that only students in our class have access). To facilitate this process -- and to help you in organization -- I strongly suggest that you keep all your .htm files in a separate folder on your leland space in your WWW folder. Think about organization within that space, too. You might want to have separate subfolders for each major path/topic and one for your images. Click here for instructions on how to ftp into your leland space to store your files. A note: please do not get frustrated if you have no computer experience and are feeling somewhat overwhelmed by this task. I am most interested in the quality of your research and writing, and the design of your website as it reflects an understanding of the principles of electronic rhetoric. Whether or not you act on these principles through a very basic design or through elaborate java scripts is less important than that you understand these principles themselves and attempt to put them into practice(see reflection letter below, for more on this). As part of your final draft (due in March), you need to turn in a site map of your research hypertext. This site map can be done by hand or a graphics program like Inspiration - however, like the retro-map you did of the Kairos sites, it should accurately reflect your links and their relationship to each other. I would suggest that you create and revise this map as you go along to minimize the time you need to spend on it at the end. In addition, having a draft of your site map present at each part of the research process should greatly facilitate your peer review and evaluation. This site map should either be posted onto your personal space or printed out to be handed in. It may be an expansion of your visual map from earlier in the quarter or it may be a completely different document. The reflection letter is your opportunity to discuss the principles of e-rhetoric that you tried to implement in your research paper as well as to reflect on the hypertext project as a whole. In your reflection, please give an overview of your progress through the project -- recording both your highs and lows as you moved through the stages of the hypertext assignment. In addition, please comment on the design of your site: what rhetorical decisions you made about voice, audience, purpose, design, organization, chunking; what you are proud of; what you would have done more of had you had more time; and what you would have improved on had you had greater technical knowledge. In addition, please note the principles of e-rhetoric that you followed in constructing your site -- i.e. what decisions you made about embedded vs. listed links, amount of text on a page, use of graphics, etc. You may refer to a supplementary text if it was instrumental in determining how you constructed your hypertext (such as one of the Writing for the Web pages that you read earlier in the quarter). Keep in mind, this is your primary place to speak to me about your goals, accomplishments, and your perceived shortcomings in drafting and revising your hypertext. Your reflection letter should be 2 pages long and should be posted or handed in on March 8th. It does not need to be linked to your hypertext site, but you may link it if you want to.
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