CSci 115: Computing and the Internet

Home Syllabus Assignments Tests

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Assignment 1: Advertisement

Develop a Web page to advertise a fictional product. It can be a commercial, political, public service, or personal advertisement. Feel free to be humorous in what you advertise.

The Web page should contain at least one image and at least two paragraphs of text, with a total of at least 150 words (not that I'll count the words explicitly). Also, there should be some tasteful variation of fonts within the paragraphs (as with the b and em tags). (You might also consider the tt tag for a typewriter font, big for a bigger font, and small for a smaller font. Also, though it doesn't change the font, you might like the center tag for centering text on the page.)

You may incorporate images downloaded from other locations on the Web, but if you do this, you should credit the source on your Web page. (You can search for images at images.google.com.) You can also create your own image; for this, we have installed Paint.Net on the Windows computers (at Start > All Programs > Computer Science) in addition to the more barebones image editor Microsoft Paint (Start > All Programs > Accessories). (If you have your own computer and want to use Paint.Net, the software is free and available at getpaint.net.) The Linux computers have the image editor Gimp installed.

In this, as in all assignments, you are free to use whatever XHTML and CSS code you like; you do not need to feel restricted to what we cover in class. However, as with all assignments in this course, the XHTML you generate must be typed directly: Do not use a WYSIWYG editor such as DreamWeaver or Microsoft FrontPage. These editors tend to generate XHTML code that's obviously not typed by a human being, so it will be fairly obvious if you attempt to use them. You should use Aptana. [Using Aptana]

Your grade on this assignment will be based on the following criteria.

• the skill with which the HTML tags are mixed, including whether the assignment meets the criteria above.
• the validity of your XHTML. There is a useful Web service for checking XHTML for errors at validator.w3.org. Note that some of its complaints aren't really problematic as far as I'm concerned, such as the lack of alt attributes for img tags or the deprecation of the center tag.
• the readability of the XHTML source, such as using white space appropriately.
• the tastefulness of your Web page design.
• the quality of your writing, including writing mechanics (spelling & grammar) and writing style (how engaging it is). This will be a criterion on all assignments in this course. Obviously, I'm not looking for a formal essay in this assignment. You know what good advertising copy looks like: Imitate it — even to the point of parody, if you like.

You should submit your solution on-line using a custom-written submission system called Sauron. [Instructions on using Sauron]