Whether we like it or not, glitzy pictures and bright colours sell.  Never mind the quality - does it look good.  And as has been quite rightly pointed out, there are numerous contributions here which have incredible content and yet are plain to the eye and so are not downloaded.  I have a wonderful worksheet (not advertising here!!) that I have used countless times and it has been extremely successful, and I think very useful, but has only been downloaded 3 times.  I might try an experiment where I submit the same worksheet with illustrations and see if it is downloaded more as a result.

 

The true talent of course is to originate excellent looking worksheets in combination with good quality content, and there are contributors on this site who can do just that.

 

It may, therefore, not seem fair that glamour gives way to genius - but that is a fact of life. (Look at some hollywood stars and see what I mean).  But also remember that the aim of this site is NOT to accumulate the maximum number of points.  Lets face it, when you have over 100 points, why do you need many more?  The aim is to share the best that we can with each other and to help the community of language teachers around the world. 

 

Call me an old fashioned idealist, but I think we start to lose perspective when we moan that others are getting more points than me.  Sometimes the forum sounds a little like a school yard argument.

 

I did just what you are contemplating. 

 

When I first joined, I uploaded a ws which was B&W, no artwork but still a good ws and got about 9 downloads, if I remember correctly.

Well, I deleted it, gave it a facelift, added clipart, borders etc...maybe changed a few sentences and uploaded it.

Well, I got more than 170 downloads!  Mind you, the same ws but just enhanced... 

So, packaging really does make a difference. 

 

I�ve seen some "pretty" ws that were so lacking in content that I didn�t bother to download them and have downloaded numerous "dull-looking ws" with great content!

 

I think it�s up to us as teachers to choose...after all, we have the critical ability.

 

By the way, what I consider to be my best ws, is NOT the most downloaded one!

Let�s not forget that "elementary" sells more than anything else, especially ws for YLs.

 

Greeting from sunny but windy Thessaloniki (Greece)

Alex

All my ws are in b/w and have no none funcional drawings or pictures for one and only reason. This way they are more printable and copyeable. At my school i have only limited acces to a b/w prinet and copymachine. So i need to make thos copy wortwhile. With other words don�t "waste" ink or space on cute drawings. If teacher want them to make there WS to look more atractive they can download my work and add some clip arts. (thats the easy part in my idea)

I also take some time in removing pretty and colorfull frames , drawings and other decoration.

I do notice that my WS arenot the most waned on here but im allready happy when like 5 people can use my sheet and i can search for 5 ideas on here :D

I just hope that people cgo for content first and than looks.