20 Mar Website and Analysis

Website and Analysis/Report
Introduction: This project complements your professional application materials but moves from
the textual to the digital. While resumes and cover letters can be viewed as textual
representations, professional websites can be viewed as a digital representation of who you are.
We are going to rely on familiar conceptualizations, including visual rhetoric, design, and
rhetorical moves such as layout, organization, font choice, font size, and accessibility, to build a
professional website. Additionally, we are going to have to consider what it means to
communicate effectively through the digital. As always, especially in technical communication,
we are going to have to consider our audience and our purposes for creating a professional
website.

Getting Started and Putting it Together: As you submit professional application materials
through online platforms and portals, you might notice how organizations and companies
provide an option for applicants to include a personal website. This option is present for
numerous reasons: to provide more insight into a candidate, to show a candidate’s ability to
adapt to different forms of communication, to indicate a candidate’s knowledge and skills with
technology and digital platforms, and so forth. Organizations are searching for individuals with
expertise in digital communication regardless of discipline and field since communication in the
21st century is largely dependent on technology. Consider the spaces in which companies have
the most visibility to wide audiences: commercials, apps, tv shows, social media platforms, and
websites. As you create your professional website, think about your primary audience: who will
be accessing your site? what content is important to that audience? what tone do you want to
create? Think about your purposes: what do you want this site to accomplish? what are the best
ways to go about that? what rhetorical moves are you making to complement those purposes?
In addition to creating a professional website, you are going to be required to write an
analysis/report where you describe your audience and purpose for creating/and designing your
site. You will need to be analytical which means you will need to move beyond writing about
“what” you did and move towards explaining “why” and “how” you incorporated specific
design-based decisions. You will need to provide evidence via screenshots of the design-based
decisions you incorporated on your site, followed by a detailed explanation of how the design
choice connects to your audience and meets your purposes.
Website requirements:
 at least 4 separate pages (e.g. home page, about me page, contact page)
 at least 3 images (e.g. one being of you)
 at least 300 words of text (not reused text, e.g., text from your resume or cover letter
copied and pasted on the site does not count)
 at least one dropdown menu bar leading to another page
 at least three links (to outside sites, or across the same site; social media icons)
Analysis/Report:
5-6 pages, double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12-point font, 1” margins, 3 (min.) or 4 (max.)
screenshot images, MLA format