3: The Rhetorics of Web Pages

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Matt Barton, James Kalmbach, & Charles Lowe et al.
Collaborvention 2011: A Computers and Writing Unconference

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You may be thinking that if all you are doing is writing blog entries, why do you need to think about rhetorical issues? And it is true that many blog templates offer you very little control over the look of your pages. Still, no matter how little control you may feel you have, you still can add hyperlinks, headers and subheaders, graphics and videos. Different genres of web writing offer different degrees of control over the rhetoric of your pages, but these issues are always present to one degree or another.

This section is not a how-to guide; you will not find step-by-step directions or software tutorials. There are plenty of other sources for such tutorials on the web. We encourage you to consider your overall strategy and purpose before getting down to specifics. Once you know the best ways to appeal to your audience, the rest is easy.