I have read The New York Times in print, online, in PDF and on my Nook. Having personal experience reading in all of these versions have made me come to realize that I prefer reading The New York Times online. I usually don’t like reading on a screen with a backlight for long periods of time, but I make an exception for this amazing newspaper. The only thing not so amazing, which makes me want to read online, is the layout. My opinion of the layout is not a very good one. It causes me to become confused and distracted. The online version has a much more simple layout that I can read without having to stop every five seconds.

The body type, which is known as an Imperial body type, confuses me greatly. The body type is done in paragraph forms that are lined up from top to bottom in multiple columns. Having to go from top to bottom to top again gets me easily confused.

All of the articles are also very close together in the print version. Along with the undesirable body type, the close proximity of the articles makes it even harder to stay on track. When I try and read in the print edition, I usually cannot stay on track for more than a paragraph or two. Since the articles are so close together, my eyes tend to wander to a different article than the one I was reading. This is very frustrating because I don’t want to take breaks when reading an article. Because of these problems, it takes me a lot longer than it should when reading an article.

Another problem that makes The New York Times print edition hard to read is Jump Lines. Jump Lines are lines are used when an article starts on one page and is finished on another page or even section of the newspaper. I do not have the time or attention span to be flipping through the newspaper to find my spot. By having to do this, not only do I lose track, I lose interest in the article.

Some people argue that The New York times print edition is better because they feel you cannot annotate an article online.  Today computers are so advanced they have tools to annotate. I like to annotate my articles with the high light feature. You can also copy and paste an article into Microsoft Word in order to insert track changes. You can use these track change tabs as a place to write your thoughts. My preference is to write down my thoughts on a separate sheet of paper all together. Writing down facts and main points help me remember them more. This proves you can still annotate The New York Times online.

 I like reading the articles straight through and the only way I can do this is with the print edition. It makes me feel a lot more in tune with the article and when I am in tune with it, I can understand it better. The most important part of reading an article is understanding it! I feel that whichever way allows you to understand what you are reading is the way to go.