LET'S COMMUNICATE
Agriculture Communication Newsletter April 2001, No. 64

CONTENTS

WRITE THE RIGHT WORD
THE NEED FOR SPEED

WRITE THE RIGHT WORD

"There's a great power in words, if you don't hitch too many of them together." Josh Billings

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The Trained Professional Watch has been paying especially close attention to the sports section lately, as the Twins, the Head Watcher's favorite team, are off to a good start. Twins manager Tom Kelly was quoted in a wire service story as saying "we were able to EEK out a win." I watched the game in question on TV, and it was pretty scarey. But I believe the homonym the writer should have used is EKE out a win. Eke out can mean to supplement or to make last, or, in the sense that TK intended, "to make by laborious or precarious means."

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A punctuation tendency I've been noticing in manuscripts is to mix rather than match marks setting off parenthetical elements within a sentence. The choices are commas, dashes or parentheses. Which to use is sometimes a judgment call, but they should come in pairs. For example: "Sam Jones, our most experienced technician, is writing the report" is correct, but I often see something like, "Sam Jones, our most experienced technician is writing the report." It looks awkward and, in a more complex sentence, might be confusing. Parentheses are rarely misused in this manner, but writers sometimes "forget" the second one, which can also be confusing. (Commas are adequate in most cases, by the way. Save dashes and parentheses for when "stronger" punctuation is needed.)

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Beware the dread comma splice. A comma splice occurs when two complete sentences are joined together with a comma rather than with a concluding mark like a period or semicolon. It's not a true compound sentence because it has no conjunction or transition. The most common comma splice occurs when the adverb "however" is mistaken for a conjunction, as in: "I tried to help, however I just confused things." "However" can point in either direction. When two complete sentences are joined by a transitional word like however or therefore, use a semicolon between the sentences and a comma after the transitional word. "I tried to help; however, I just confused things." That makes it clear where the first sentence ends. Your readers will appreciate it.

The Need for Speed

Most NDSU faculty and staff enjoy high speed Internet connections, being directly connected to some type of network. However, a vast majority of our users, like home owners and farmers, are not directly connected to a network. They use dial- up modems to access the Internet and thus have much slower communication speeds.

Actual modem communication speeds vary dramatically. The highest speed depends in part on the slowest rated modem. For example: it would be impossible for a 56KB modem communicating with a 33.6KB modem to communicate faster than 33.6KB (the slowest of the two). The quality of the line transmitting the call, sometimes being routed hundreds of miles before it reaches it's actual destination, has a big impact on speed. When two modems connect they electronically 'shake hands' and agree what speed they can communicate. The 56KB modem communicating with the 33.6KB modem may in fact only be able to achieve an actual communication speed of 26KB.

Internet service providers (ISPs) in North Dakota report most users have actual communication speeds in the 20 to 40KB range, depending on line quality at the time of the call. One reported having dozens of users still accessing the Internet with 19.2KB modems.

KB is computer geek speak to describe the number of bits of data that can be transmitted per second. It takes about 10 seconds to transmit 30,000 bits of data when communicating at 28.8KB. You can use Windows Explorer to see how big your files are, then guesstimate how long it will take to download from the Web. It will take a homeowner from rural McClusky about 30 seconds to download a file that is 31,725KB and has a 16,329KB and a 11,874KB graphic.

Developing and testing our Web pages while connected to a high speed network is not at all an actual reflection of what our users will experience. Remember, we live in a fast moving society and some users will simply not wait 30 seconds or more for a Web page to load. Try to keep your Web files a reasonable size (20- 60KB) so your Internet visitors don't click the stop button and go elsewhere.

An excellent tool for checking your Web pages for download times and other design features is available at http://www.websitegarage.com . You type in the URL (Web address) of the page you want to check along with your e-mail address. Web Site Garage will analyze your page and e-mail you the results. The Need for Speed, Marketing your Web pages, Meta Tags and other more advanced topics will be covered in future Web development workshops.

Dave Rice, NDSU Ag Webmaster