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Shaharyar Akram Noaman

Dr. Santosh Khadka

English 113B

27th April 2020

Text-to-Web Reflection

Free will, liberty, and the right to live life without the fear of being forcefully used for

exploitation are all natural rights, to which, each and every human being on this planet is

deserving of. These rights are taken for granted by the people who have never witnessed any

form of human trafficking; be it first hand, second, or third. But the reality is, not everyone is

lucky enough to enjoy freedom in their lives, millions of people suffer due to trafficking, and

have their natural rights infringed. I chose to write a research paper about human trafficking Due

to the seriousness of the issue of human trafficking around the world, but more-so, the lack of

knowledge people have, in regards to human trafficking, and writing an essay alone, to me, could

not explain all the points I wanted to convey. Creating a website with the same content from a

research paper has its complexity, but in order to reach out, and deliver the message to a larger

demographic of readers, a website serves its purpose.

The appearance of a website compared to a research essay is poles apart. Essays are

presented in a standard, universal format, however, websites are more like a presentation. A

major point of focus while creating a website is the impression and the presentation of it. In order

to have a successful website, it is key to realize a website is accessible to the public at large,

compared to a research essay. It is important to make sure that the theme of the website is related

to the topic it talks about. I chose a monochrome theme due to the seriousness of the crisis,

which, in return has a psychological effect on the reader; black and white colors enforce a sense
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of severity of human trafficking, contrary to a colorful theme, which, in my opinion can

disregard the magnitude of the issue, creating a lack of understanding of the victims suffering.

Websites are in a different realm in contrast to essays, when it comes to organization.

Research essays are organized to a certain standard, whereas, website organization differs in

various ways in order to make it accessible for the readers. Essays do not provide the luxury of

having tabs, with clear cut headings for the readers to browse, instead, they require the reader to

read through the essay to find specific information, whereas, all the tabs for my website have a

specific function of slowly educating the reader, starting off slow with basics, then gradually

provide more information about the crisis. The tabs are all related, as they complement each

other and provide all the necessary information needed with research, proof, and support

provided by the right organizations.

Moving on, websites have a different, larger, and a broad-ranging audience, compared to

a research essay, requiring a divergent style of writing and composition. Essays are required to

have lengthy paragraphs; which is important for scholarly papers, however, a website is viewed

by different age groups, looking to find comprehendible information, I found it compulsory for

the website to have to-the-point information. It is very easy for readers to lose concentration

when they notice long strings of words in a website, in order to make sure to keep the reader

interested, I cut out larger paragraphs in to shorter sentences displayed under sub-headings for

ease of access and understanding. Also, research essays require the use of formal language due to

its scholarly audience, which makes it hard to use questions as sub-headings, nevertheless, a

website offers cross-disciplinary composition, which allowed me to add short threads of key

information under questions as the sub-headings.

Moreover, a website is required to use variety of media and content, compared to

research paper. Formal writing sets numerous limitations on the usage of different types of media

in a research essay, restricting the categories of readers it can attract, however, websites are open

to unlimited media resources which can be added. Many a-times, readers might prefer the option

of visuals, i.e. images, videos and graphs, rather than reading, for a thorough understanding of

the issue. Compared to my essay, where I could only use a limited amount of images and popular

sources, as instructed by professor Khadka, and every image used as a source had to be infused

with a follow on explanation supporting the argument, the website allowed me to add numerous

sources, including images on every page; at-times without explanations, for the purpose of

connecting emotionally with the reader. Also, the website gave me the option of including videos

to my advantage, which in-return gave non-scholarly readers the opportunity to under grasp

similar information as the essay, but, in a loose manner. The use of images, logos, symbols and

videos helps create an emotional attachment towards the reader, which is always helpful to make

readers get involved in the topic being displayed by the website.

To conclude, it is very important to present information in a style that is understood by the reader

be it a research essay or a website. Human trafficking is a global crisis, writing a research paper,

then creating a website from it had its challenges but it made my understanding of it more

absolute. Both the mediums, require different approaches required for attaining desired results,

the two differ in their format, organization, the content the use and even their themes. Websites

and research papers, both have different audiences, being able to cater to them disparately is key.

The goal is to make sure the message in conveyed, and to create an awareness in the readers’

mind about the crisis, if achieved, we can be sure that the website served its purpose.
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