The Personal Web Page

If you don't know how to write HTML, it's pretty easy. There are plenty of good HTML tutor sites, available online for free. One of the best of these is the Beginner's Guide to HTML. Also look at the World Wide Web Consortium's Getting Started with HTML. HTML editors (Like FrontPage) can help, but Web purists usually frown on using them. Sometimes these editors are browser-specific, which means that someone using another kind of browser might not see the page correctly. Professors usually require HTML projects to be coded by hand, rather than through an HTML editor.

Just a short while ago, you had to pay money to publish a web page on a server. Now, of course, you have any number of free web hosting services. So it's a good idea to create your own web page, show off your tech savvy, and display your resume, all at the same time. But with a web page come some potential problems, too:

An outdated web page is worse than no page at all; and
A bad web page is worse than no page at all

What makes a bad web page? Everyone has a different answer, but the consensus seems to be:

Too many colors, animated .gifs, and other graphics;
Large image files;
An over-dependence on browser-specific elements; and
Just about anything else that might annoy, confuse, or alienate your visitors

There are a lot of online web-style guides. Some of them disagree, but you really can't go wrong with these:

Crafting a Nifty Personal Web Site: Advice on "how not to be annoying" and how to attract visitors to your web page.

Style Guide for Online Hypertext: This more advanced style guide was written by Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the Web.
A Basic HTML Style Guide: From NASA, this guide emphasizes consistency and readability.
Composing Good HTML: A very detailed discussion of what makes good HTML code.

To Humanities 347 Pathfinders Homepage

This page created by Christopher Ryland 25 August 2000. Last updated 25 August 2000.