Department of Linguistics, UCLA
The need for a graduate student to have
a Web page increases as her/his research career progresses and a certain
amount of research "product" accumulates. This being the modern world,
it is sensible for you to make it possible for any Web-equipped person in
the world to
This becomes particularly critical at job application time. If a search committee is intrigued by the sample work you've included with your application, they may be hungry for more, and they may try to find more at your Web site.
It's useful to place the links to your papers in the context of a brief outline of your research interests, which guide the viewer toward the relevant papers.
It's also useful to post a research bibliography and/or curriculum vitae.
The papers themselves can be included, if this is how you want to do it. It's better, if possible, to post the papers on an archive, which lets people find them (through topic searches) even if they've never heard of you. This is now possible, for instance, for work in Optimality Theory. Posting on a public archive would also be a good defense against anyone ever plagiarizing you. You can still include links on your own Web page; you just link to the archive.
Papers are posted in various formats, including native word processor formats, Postscript, and PDF. The latter format is probably the current best: it is very compact, can handle most graphical and formatting information, and can be read by anyone with a current computer, since the PDF reader is downloadable for free. To learn how to make PDF files, click here.
People differ in terms of whether they like to post things destined for publication. One ought to be careful never to get into trouble with publishers or other entities that have a fierce concern for copyright. However, another view that is often taken is that letting people download from your own Web page is no different from mailing out Xerox copies. Some people go so far as to include the manuscript versions of articles that have appeared in print;certainly it is easier for most people to download these versions than to go to the library.
If you would like people to have access to the data that served as the basis of your article, you can post that as well. You can also post things that help your article but would make your article too long to publish.
It's useful to make it easy for people to find you, by providing e-mail and possibly other information. You have to decide for yourself about any privacy issues this may raise.
A picture of yourself is nice, as long as it looks reasonably professional. Avoid images that are 90% background and only 10% your own person.
Lastly, there's the issue of how much clever formatting and glitziness there should be. When visitors see these things on your Web page, they learn that you are clever enough to implement them. On the other hand a very plain Web site might be interpreted as suggesting that you just don't have the time for silly stuff... One could go either way on this point. Definitely avoid glitziness that makes the text hard to read, such as yellow print on a beige background.
What to Think Very Carefully before you Include
Academics sometimes construct Web sites that include lots of personal information (favorite rock bands, wedding pictures, pets, recipes, etc.). One view that could be taken is that if the personal information dominates the site, it could create a bad impression on people (for example, potential employers) whose interest is in your research. If you really yearn to put personal information on your site, a reasonable compromise might be to make the personal part of your site separate, letting the Home page remain relatively professional in appearance.
In the same category as the above plausibly would belong those cute, cute Web thingies, like the teddy bear clapping his hands.
Lastly, you should remember that your Web page will be visited by individuals from all sorts of different cultures, and with many different political opinions. Thus things like sexist or ethnic jokes are liable to make an impression on some of your Web visitors that is very negative, even if you had no intention of offending anybody by posting them. People's conception of what constitutes "innocent fun" really varies a lot.
If you have a Web site that you put up a couple years ago and never updated, it's probably best to take it down. Such Web sites are seldom useful to visitors. They also might convey a bad impression about the owner of the Web site: owner is no longer working in the field, owner has not been doing anything worth posting, owner has the habit of leaving projects uncompleted, etc., etc.
The amount you could learn about setting up Web pages is appallingly large; after all, lots of people set up Web pages for a living. On the other hand, if your goals are content-oriented (i.e. you want people to be able to download your CV and papers), then just a little knowledge should be fine.
I. To get space on the Humanities server to put your Web page, send a message like this one to hcf@humnet.ucla.edu:
"Dear HCF:
I am a graduate student in Linguistics and would like to start a Web Page using HCF's server. Please locate my page along with the other Linguistics graduate students, in http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/grads/YourName/. Also, please let me know my logon ID and password.
Thank you very much.
Yours sincerely,
YourName"
Note that you can also get server space from Bruin On Line; go to this address for information. One factor that might favor using Humanities Computing instead is that Bruin On Line will probably delete your Web site the moment you get your Ph.D. The Humanities server space, in contrast, is controlled by the Linguistics Department, and we would be happy to keep your UCLA Web page up and running until you tell us otherwise.
II. To create your page, it's easiest to use a Web page editor. These work on a what-you-see-is-what-you-get basis, and obviate the need to learn the HTML language in which Web pages are written.
An extremely simple editor, AOLPress, can be downloaded for free from this site. It's a good choice for an utterly plain site. Slightly more complicated, but more up to date, is the editor that comes with Netscape (also free).
To begin your Home page, click on File, New in a Web page editor, or else ask a colleague if you can borrow the format of their page to use as a template. Assuming they say yes, borrow the page by going to it with a Web browser, then clicking on File, Save As; then putting it in an appropriate folder on your hard disk. You can then edit it to become your own page by opening it with a Web page editor.
III. As the file name for your Home page (the one people will see first), use the title index.htm or index.html. The reason is that it shortens your web address. For example, Colin Wilson's home page can be reached at http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/wilson/, even though its full name (which also works) is http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/wilson/index.html.
If you already have a suboptimal Home page name, you can move your Home page to index.htm, and replace your old Home page with a page that notifies the user of the change, then autoforwards to the new Home page . Click here to learn how.
IV. To post your page on the server, you need an "FTP" (File Transfer Protocol) program. This lets you move files from your own hard disk to the folder(s) designated for your use on the Web server. Your computer may already have an FTP program (in Windows, you can check by clicking Start, Find, Files or Folders, then type ftp in the Named window and click Find Now). Also, your Web page editor may include an FTP capacity. Otherwise, there are various ways to get an FTP program, such as buying one in a software store, or downloading one from this site.
In using your FTP program, you first tell the program where it can find your Web server. This will almost certainly be www.humnet.ucla.edu; if this doesn't work, contact Humanities Computing. (For Bruin On Line pages, click here for directions.) Once the FTP program succeeds in finding the server, you will usually see two windows. In one window, you click on the appropriate buttons until you've found the folder on your computer where you keep your own copy of your Web pages. In the other window, you find the folder on the server (or make a new one) where you keep the copy that the server sends out on the Web. You click on the name of the file you want to move, and click on a button with an arrow to move it (one arrow will be: up to the server, called uploading; the other arrow: down to your computer, called downloading).
V. Posting papers and other items. The FTP program can, in principle, move almost anything to the server, not just Web pages. For example, you can upload word processing documents (.doc), spreadsheets (.xls), images (.gif, .jpg etc.), and documents in PDF format (see above for PDF). To let people download these files, you put links into your Web pages. Then people who visit your page can download the files by clicking on the links.
The specific way you make this links is: in your Web page editor, type the words of the link (e.g., the title of a paper). Then, use the mouse to highlight these words. Click on the editor's "Link" button. A special window will come up, into which you type or paste the file name of the downloadable item.
Lastly, you upload both the revised Web page and the downloadable file to the Web server. Then revisit your Web page (using your normal Web browser) and click on the new link to make sure it really works. (A caution: if you were previously inspecting your page with your browser, and kept your browser on during the time you made changes and uploaded, then you must click View, Refresh on your browser in order to see the new version.)
VI. Helping people find your page. It is possible to notify Web-search services, such as Google, that your Web page exists. A service that claims it can do this is here. It seems, however, that the search engines are pretty good at finding you. If you will notify a member of the Department Web Site Committee, we can put a link to your page on our graduate student directory.
VII. Often a good place to learn about working with the Web is the Web. For instance, try typing keywords characterizing what you would like to learn how to do into Google. Other useful resources are Humanities Computing's own homepaging site and the Web advice page of Bruin On Line.
Your input concerning what should go on this page is welcome. Please contact the current members of the Department Web Site Committee.
Back to Graduate Advising Home Page
Back to Linguistics Dept. Homepage