Course Policies for English 382

1. The weights of the graded work are as follows:
   • 5 homeworks @5pts: 25%
   • 2 Exercises @10pts: 20%
   • Recovery/extension of site from list:15%
   • Final project (my place): 25%
   • Class Participation: 15%
(Web style profile & Metaphorical Imagemap are Exercises (@10%))
2. In-class exercises should be done and left in your account in the LAN. All assigned work can and should be posted to the Message Board and your Dante accounts--these are accessible from anywhere 24/7.
3. I will show you how to get professional results using only freeware text and image editing programs. You can use commercial software such as Dreamweaver and Photoshop/ImageReady or Fireworks if you already know how to, but if you use the freeware tools, you will better understand how the stuff actually works and how to debug it. Also you will not have to stay on good terms with people who can bootleg you the latest version.
4. You can use Pico, vi, or emacs as editors to make minor changes in files already on your account. Beware of using Pico with Javascript, for it inserts invisible breaks when it scrolls and so breaks Javascript in ways that are impossible to see on proofing. HTMLKit is a very full-featured editor (freeware from Chami.com) for to download it on your home computer (assuming it has Windows™). There are some freeware editors for Mac, or you can get BBEdit.
5. Use the XHTML 1.0 Strict Doctype for your pages. Use the xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml/" attribute within the HTML tag (both of these on this page--view source.) Make the markup XML-compliant by closing all empty elements and making sure that all tags are lower case and all attribute values are enclosed in quotes (or "inches"). HTMLKit makes this easy.
6. Get in the habit of using Tidy and CSS Validator in HTMLKit and/or in Firefox, especially as you draw near to a finished draft, and always if something is not working as expected. Also use the spell-checker. Misspelled words on line look sloppy and lame (unlike email).
7. Always sign and date your on-line work for this class. A convenient way to do this is the footer.shtml that I use for this site (with changed copyright, of course). This is included at the bottom of each file with the line: <!--#include file="footer.shtml"--> This will automatically print the URL of the page and the date it was written to disk.
8. All pages you make should be scalable two bumps up and two bumps down from your default or specified dimensions.