Buy and read a daily or weekly newspaper that has a Web version -- e.g., San Francisco Chronicle or Examiner, New York Times, or San Jose Mercury News.

First simply read the (paper) newspaper, as you normally would.  In about a page, write a summary of your experiences, including such factors as:

• Where did you read it?  (BART, kitchen table, bathroom, cafe...)
• Did you read it all at once, or spread out over hours or the day?  Pay attention to how much time you spent reading the paper.
• What did you look at first?  (Be honest, I won't tell anyone if you only read the horoscope.)
• What caused you to read the stories and features that you did?  (E.g., location on front page, habit -- "I always read Jon Carroll", attention-getting headline, a story you are following...)
• Did you look for specific things?  (E.g., articles about a particular place, person, or on-going story;  features like columnists and comics; a special section; book reviews).  How easy were they to find?
• How did the physical affordances of the paper affect your reading, positively or negatively?  (E.g., a story was continued from page 1 to a different section of the paper, which you didn't have; you  carried with you only the sections of the paper you wanted to read;  you tore out a story to pass on to someone else; you read more stories at the bottom of the page because the paper was lying on the kitchen table while you ate breakfast...)
• How did the layout and arrangement of the paper affect your reading?  (E.g., the front page guided you to the most important stories; you knew where to find the columnist you wanted to read)
• If you were in a public place where others were reading the paper during the day -- BART, a cafe -- add in whatever observations you were able to make of others' behavior that either reinforced or differed from your experiences.

• How does the online version differ from the paper?  In layout, tone, style, content...whatever.
• In particular, is there more information presented online?  Less? Differently laid out?
• How did your experience differ between the two versions?  Consider not only the physical differences, and overt differences in your behavior (e.g., reading on BART vs in the computer lab) but other differences as well -- did you read different articles?  Were there articles that caught your attention in the paper version and not online, or vice versa?  Did you tend to go to different stories, features, sections?  Spend more or less time?  Read more or less thoroughly?

Total assignment should be 3-4 pages.