A Quick & Dirty Guide to Setting up Your Online Writing Portfolio

1. SETTING UP
YOUR
ONLINE
WRITING
PORTFOLIO
A Quick & Dirty Guide
© Jason Tham. 2014.
For more information about this
presentation, please visit
www.jasontham.com.

2. An online writing portfolio is essential to presenting yourself
professionally in the highly competitive writing industry.
A portfolio makes it easy for your potential employers or clients
to see your talent and evaluate your writing proficiency.
Putting your work online makes them searchable and
transferrable.
RATIONALE

3. Sites like WordPress and Blogger are commonly used by
writers as a platform to collect and showcase their work.
Though, there are other ready-to-use portfolio sites that allow
you to plug in your writing samples on a more beautifully
designed webpage. Those may come with a fee or for free.
PLATFORMS

4. Once you have decided on a platform to house your
writing, take some time to select a design/layout option that
best fits the objective of your portfolio and the tone of your
writing samples.
For instance, you don’t want your portfolio to look too childish
or playful if you would like to show it to your employer at a
job interview.
DESIGN MATTERS

5. However, if your portfolio is a home to personal narratives or
creative collections of yours, you may want to choose a less
serious or “business-ese” appearance for your portfolio
design.
Use your best discretion when deciding on the theme of your
website. Keep in mind that you can always change it later.
DESIGN MATTERS

6. My Suggestions:
(WordPress themes)
Twenty Eleven, Twenty Twelve, Twenty
Thirteen, Expound, Writr, Sorbet, Syntax, Wu
Wei, Manifest, Widely.
Please don’t spend money buying themes for this class.

7. Keep this in mind:
Help your readers see what you are trying to say or present.
Use attractive visuals or graphics to illustrate your ideas.
Your portfolio should be a combination of verbal (written) and
visual work.

9. Once you have some writing samples to put on your
portfolio, you should think about how you want to arrange
your work:
Thematic: Follows certain genres, styles, or purposes.
Chronological: Posts writing in ascending/descending order.
ARRANGEMENT

10. Your portfolio can be a one-stop site for your clients or
employers to find links to your other social networks, such
as Twitter, LinkedIn, or other professional about-me sites.
Again, use your best discretion when deciding which social
network(s) to include and which not to. Including such links in
your portfolio is a rhetorical move.
SOCIAL NETWORKS

11. WEB ELEMENTS

12. Main menu bar

13. Parent and subpages

14. Side widgets

15. Title of entry

16. Body/content of entry

17. Meta/tool bar (this is how you login)

18. Getting Started:
http://codex.wordpress.org/First_Steps_With_WordPress

19. SETTING UP
YOUR
ONLINE
WRITING
PORTFOLIO
A Quick & Dirty Guide
© Jason Tham. 2014.
For more information about this
presentation, please visit
www.jasontham.com.