As a student wanting to teach Literature at the secondary level, I spend a great deal of time looking for those
internet sites that not only offer me a chance to enrich my understanding of an author or poet but would some day invite my future students to do the same. The idea that the site selected must be both academically sound and fun to browse may seem to be a contradiction in terms but fortunately http://jefferson.village.virgina.edu/blake/main.html manages to be both. Using The Eightfold Path to Enlightened
Web sight, I have created my own walk through of this site.

Please remember, as a student, the opinions offered within this space are strictly the humble offerings of one person but when I am finally turned loose in the academic community, I expect the text that follows to be treated like dogma by those who want to pass my class. (Just call me a William Strunk Jr. wanna be). Feel free to quote me to me at any time, citation format will be discussed in full during class time.

As the title implies, The Eightfold Path considers eight topics to be fundamental in discussing and judging a web site, ranging from user friendliness to its overall appeal.  The critique presents the following order for these topics to be addressed. This Blakian icon based table mirrors not only the site I am reviewing but attempts  to answer the questions raised in the Eightfold Path about my selected web site. Are you impressed yet?

 Is it Pretty?           Sex Without  Bodies         Is What it Says Worth Saying?        Is it fun to Surf?
                                                                                   

Is there any                  Is it Code worthy?                Interactivity or                        Linked or Lost?
 Coolness?                                                                 Intractability?
                                                                          

    During the course of completing this assignment I was forced to really examine the issue of what makes a web site good, really good in terms of the information being offered, the way the information is presented and the use of technology to give a web site that certain sparkle. The Eightfold Path to Enlightened Web sites presents much of the same information available in the other web style guides we could have selected for this critique in an informal voice. I selected this type of voice because it is the same type of voice I want to use in the class room. But producing this essay in web page format was a completely different story. There can be nothing informal about the approach to posting text, graphics, and links to the internet. Not only do I now acknowledge the above eight questions when questioning the cyber worthiness of a site, I am forced to think about the amount of time that is required to post a web site. Even the most simple  sites, like my own home page, can take many hours of work. But like my dear old grandma used to say, "Anything worth doing is worth doing well" so with that in mind, I will not only be a more critical viewer of web sites but will continue to make my own site evolve into a site that isn't just cluttering up the web. I may never write as beautifully as William Blake but I can (one day) have a web site that is as cool as his.