One Word Rubric

[jgagne]

One Word: To-Dos

20 to-dos, 5 points each, with 2 extra credit to-dos.

Structure

• Artwork (below or above the header)
  • [ ] A static or animated image
    • Use .jpg for photograph
    • Use .png for illustration/design/type
    • Use .gif for animation
• Header
  • [x] Title
  • [ ] Byline
  • [ ] Date
• Main
  • [x] Hook
  • [x] Thesis Statement
  • [x] The Whys
    • At least three (3)
  • [x] Conclusion
  • [x] Takeaway
• Navigation
  • [x] Rough or first draft, or both
  • [x] Revision documenting your process with peer review notes, edit options, AI rewrites, etc.
  • [x] Edit (final-ish)

Formatting

Text

• [x] Use chunking, separate and accessible paragraphs (concise, short, etc.)
• [ ] Use Markdown for section (heading [title]) and text-level semantics (strong [visual bold weight] and emphasis [visual italic style])
  • Use proper typographic style:
    • Before: Avoid straighten punctation, such as "straight quotes", apostrophes (e.g., Honza's coat; girls' scarves), ellipses... etc.
    • After: Use educated (smart) punctation, such as “curly quotes”, apostrophes (e.g., Honza’s coat; girls’ scarves), ellipses… etc.

Image

• [ ] Use a meaningful file name, all in lowercase
  • Before Homework_image.png (for this example, “homework” is the one word.)
  • After: homework.png, homework-illustration.png, one-word-homework.png, etc.
• [ ] Use a max-height of 720px to keep artwork manageable with the focus on text, rather than image
  • Use a square 1:1 aspect at 720px x 720px, or
  • Use a landscape rectangle 16:9 at 1280px x 720px (which GitHub will display at 960px x 540px)

Readability

Text

• [x] Use a grade level of 8 or below
  • Includes alt text, too
• [x] Use 500 words or fewer
  • Consider alt text as part of the main text (now, or going forward)

Accessibility

Image

• [ ] Use a meaningful alt text description
  • A concise, relevant, and vivid alternative text description: 125 characters or fewer in length, use of sentence case (start with a capital letter in the first word) and end with proper punctuation (a period), and at a readability grade level 8 or lower.
  • Consider moving or adding an image descriptor to the end of your alt text description.
    • For example: A meaningful alternative text description. Color illustration.
• [ ] Use accessible colors and color contrast
  • Test Images: Coblis (web) or Sim Daltonism (Mac-only app) - Color blindness simulators
  • Test Colors: Accessible color palette builder

Extra Credit

Best Practice

• [x] Add an index.md for your (close to) final edit (including edits from feedback)
  • See: Template for reference
• [ ] Optimize artwork
  • Image file sizes for the web should weigh in at under 300 KB, not around 1 MB (1,000 KB) or more.
    • First, Save images for web, using Photoshop:
      • Photos: Export > Save for Web (Legacy)… > JPEG High Preset > Update Quality from 60 to 45
      • Illustrations: Export > Save for Web (Legacy)… > PNG-8 128 Dithered > Update Colors from 128 to 256
    • Then, use Optimizilla (web) or ImageOptim (Mac-only app) for post-production file optimization