Independent Learning Exercises.

It is now time to turn from the introductory exercises and do some research for the assignment. You will be supplied with some basic materials that you can use to make your hypermedia version of 'Heart of Darkness', but if you want to get ahead of the game it might be worth doing some web-based research and dig up some aspects of the cultural background to the early pages of the book. Use this as a way of honing your skills in plucking the material you need from the vastness of the web. You might start by looking for commentaries and analyses of the book itself: use advanced web searches (the advanced options of search engines such as Altavista or Google) and think about ways of getting the information that you need ... the author, the title, the aspect of the book on which you need information, where you are likely to find it (in British or American universities? only search .ac.uk or .edu). You might look for more general information: what did a Thames barge of 1900 look like? what's a cruising yawl? where was the Chapman lighthouse and what did it look like? what was a roman trireme? The end result of all this should be a fund of text and image assets for your assignment.