Welcome!

My name is Shyam Sharma, and I use this website for helping my students with a class assignment in Writing For Your Profession, an upper division undergraduate course that I teach in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stony Brook University, New York.

The tabs at the top represent suggested pages for students when they build their “blogfolios,” or professional portfolios that combine static pages and blog posts. While students use static pages for describing and reflecting on their academic, professional, and personal/social skills and achievements, they use blogging as a tool for developing/sharing their ideas/opinions and voices as emerging scholars and professionals in their fields of interest (in the context of a professional portfolio). To view sample pages, please hover over the tabs and click on links to corresponding samples.

The navigation panel on right features the social dimension of this sample blogfolio, showing students some of the possibilities for taking the conventionally static professional portfolio one step further and joining/creating a professional network.

The rest of this page provides suggestions about writing/designing the home page to students in this class.

Thank you for your time and interest!

For students in WRT 304 >>

Unless you have a solid reason to make your latest blog post (or a pinned post) the landing/home page of your professional portfolio, you should do some of the following in order to introduce yourself and your site to the visitor with a page titled “Home.”

As you will see in the sample, start by simply saying, “Welcome!” or something like it. Break the paragraph. Consider inserting a professional headshot, aligned right or left.

Because you cannot assume that all visitors will understand what your site is about, you should consider indicating that you created the professional blogfolio–with a quick definition–for a particular class at a particular university. In the same or a separate paragraph, you should also consider indicating the objective of the project/site, what the “blog” part of the portfolio means (since this is less familiar). If your paragraphs seem too long for a mere “welcome” page, you should use the expand/collapse function described in the “how to” page. [view more]

If you have anything else you want to tell your visitor, such as the fact that you’re not a professional web designer but …. you should do so. While talking too much is not good when you’ve just met someone, in this context, you “are” trying to introduce yourself and make a positive impression. In fact, unlike in face-to-face and oral communication, when it takes (the other person’s) time for you to finish speaking, it is far easier for visitors to “scroll down” your page and only read/listen what they want–especially if you’ve used visual tools–such as bold/italics, bulletted or numbered lists, headings or bolded titles, and the expand/collapse function (such as this one)–in order to make it easier for the reader to “skim” rather than read the content of your page. Note: A toggle longer than this paragraph on the home page would seem too long.

Among the other possible objectives of a home page are providing a link to your contact form, providing a visible link and/or icon for accessing or downloading your resume/cv, and describing (in one short sentence) how your site is organized.

And, don’t forget to thank visitors for their time.