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Jennifer Durn January 24, 2010 Purdue Online Writing Lab - http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ OVERVIEW The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) is a site designed to provide online writing resources for writers of all ages; from middle school through college and into adulthood. This site provides a variety of writing resources ranging from assistance with APA and MLA formatting, to tips for avoiding plagiarism and resume assistance. Overall, I found the site to be particularly user friendly and have utilized it when completing assignments in past courses. CONTENT The purpose and function of the Purdue OWL site is readily identifiable when the home page is accessed. Sources and authors are listed clearly and the content of the website is current and up-to-date. Resources are also available which highlight recent updates to the site and provide navigational tips for accessing information quickly and easily. Information presented in each section is relevant and easy to select what is important for the particular writing project. DESIGN Using Mozilla Firefox, I did not have any issues with navigating the Purdue OWL site. Recent updates and upgrades to the website have improved the visual appeal. Multimedia resources are not available on the site but given the subject matter, this is not surprising. One area where this site could use additional work is the lack of links to other websites outside of Purdue University's English Department.

Stetson Fancher Reviewed Aug. 31, 2010 Purpose The purpose of the Purdue Online Writing Lab is to help give information and references towards writing documents for school related projects. It is there to educate Purdue students and others about all kinds of references and sources to help make the writing process easier. They have everything from avoiding plagiarism and APA formatting style guide to exercises that might help you with your writing. This site is a great site to use for students as young as junior high, up on through graduate school. It does a great job of making difficult information accessible. Content This site has a full arsenal of information that it has to offer writers with many different kinds of goals. It also does a great job of organizing the information so that it is easily accessible to those who need it. It also keeps the references us up to date as possible. It keeps the most current style guides and even frequently produces podcasts to those who subscribe. It does not always show all of its references on the home page, but as you dig into information, then it becomes more available. The content that this site provides is one that can be applicable for many different writers.

Adam Matson 9-14-2011 Website Evaluations: 1) http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ - Purdue Online Writing Lab Overview- This site is intended for the use by students (grades 7-12+) and teachers alike in regards to English writing styles, citations, etc. The site is developed by Purdue University and even allows students to turn written works in to be reviewed by university students and teachers to help correct and guide the writing process. It has a very complete overview of how to write well-rounded essays, letters, etc. and is easy to read and navigate. It covers areas such as MLA and APA formats along with how to cite sources both in-text and bibliographical forms. I would recommend it for anyone who has a question about a writing assignment. Content- The content of this site is extraordinarily helpful and easy to navigate. From the homepage you can easily discern that the main focus is education in English writing. All areas are labeled clearly and cover many sides of whatever subject you are on. It explains clearly every aspect, such as citing sources, and shows many examples, reviewing almost all instances the writer might run in to. Design- The design is fairly basic, as many educational sites are. It is not very interactive (meaning videos, sounds, games, etc.), but it very easy to navigate. Tabs and links are obvious and lead to such places as Contact Information. Links to other parts of the site are always colored differently and easy to discern. All links are easy to read and very specific, letting the user narrow down their intended search quickly and efficiently.

Overview: Purdue OWL (online writing lab) serves as a gold mine of information for formal writing. This website is intended for students or anyone attempting to write a formal paper. It provides the newest and latest information on MLA and APA formatting information, along with a "how-to" guide for formatting your papers and citing your sources correctly. On top of that it also provides links for English as a Second Language learners, parents, and "how-to's" for cover letters and résumés. This website is extremely useful ad helpful for anyone looking for help writing a paper or teachers looking for a good resource to teach their students. I highly recommend Purdue OWL. Content: When you enter Purdue OWL you are immediately able to tell what the site is about. All the content is easily accessible and bookmarked on the home page. Although author information is not immediately available, you are able to see that it is created by a credible source, and you are able to contact the creators. Purdue keeps their information up to date and uses the latest MLA and APA handbooks to create their site. The purpose of the site is obviously informational and educational. It is well organized and the information is complete, easy to understand, and consistent with other similar sources. Design: Purdue OWL is visually appealing along with efficient. The home page is clearly labeled with an index and site sponsor obvious and visible. It is easy to move around, and if you feel lost there is a link for a "site map" in the upper right hand corner that can be used. The links on the page are highly relevant and help the users navigate to more specific cites. It is easily accessed on different browsers. There is a plethora of information readily available for the users so they do not need to visit other sites.  

Kacee Von Krosigk 1-24-10 Content Purdue OWL Online is a great way for students to learn many skills needed in English classes. They can learn how to properly cite any information in any style. There is a writing lab that can be used for practice through exercises. All English teachers would recommend this website for students so that they could learn APA and MLA citations. The different information subjects offered on Purdue Owl are: * General Writing * Research and Citation * Teacher and Tutor Resources * Subject Specific Writing * Job Search Writing * English as a Second Language * About the OWL * OWL Exercises Design The design of the website is very confusing. The pages lead to almost random pages that don't seem to have been built very well. From using this website before, I know that it has very good information however; sometimes I am turned off by the confusion of the navigation of the website. There is a link about how to use the New Owl. This explains each aspects of the website which can be very helpful to many people. Overview This is a website that is easy to use if someone simply wanted a MLA or APA style guide for citations. This is why I use this website and I will recommend this website for my students one day. The purpose of this website is to correctly teach students and the community about many aspects about English. It is very helpful for some people but can be very confusing to others.

Derek Peil 10/7/2012 Overview Purdue University Press is a substantial source of poetry and literature for educated audiences. The website's purpose is to offer intellectual texts for educators and students to incorporate into their curriculum. Carrying a simple, pleasant tone this website lists suggested poems and literature. Although the website lacks clearly stated dates of revision, it still scores high on the evaluation guides; and I recommend this site to those who are looking for some rich pieces of literary work. Content The University of Purdue's sound reputation of information precision is exemplified throughout the course of the website. This site contains sound organization and easy navigation. With genre listings and a friendly search engine, users can find what they need quickly. This allows for Educators and Students to spend less time searching for the material and more time studying it. In contrast to these strengths, the website is weak in terms of its currency. The site fails to display a revision date. But since the site is always uploaded with new inventories and sales, one can assume the site is fairly current. Design This site's display style is definitely suitable for an educational setting. The modest, yet contrasting colors make the site enjoyable to navigate. Also, the pictures of the book covers are very useful in helping to identify one from the others. Waiting for links to load is nonexistent, and this site is multi-browser friendly. Yet, this website lacks external sources from which users can broaden their findings. All of the links are internal. Do to the fact that this site is both education and profit oriented, this weakness is easily overlooked by the benefits of a deep library of texts that this site easily lays out for the user.

Tonya Searles This website clearly states on the first page that the audience is open to students or any person in the world who needs writing help. In this case, the website is being used by English students. The website provides assistance with all forms of writing including grammar, spelling, punctuation, and citing material. The user simply has to click on the topic they need help in and go from there. The website is currently maintained by the writing lab at Purdue University, and does provide copyright dates through 2014. The information is authoritative and accurate because it is developed by the aforementioned professionals at Purdue University. For an English student, or any student, the website is relevant because it can assist with basically any type of writing assignment. The purpose of the website is to help people check their work and get help with writing when they need it. The website clearly displays common mistakes people make and how to fix them, as well as allowing for people to search more in depth for rules of writing. The websites colors are very similar to that of citationmachine.net. They are subdued and not overly hard to look at for long periods of time. The website has a lot of content, but the front page is neatly categorized without being overwhelming. I like how the mission statement of the website is right on the home page. The content is categorized by topic and each link I clicked on worked. Each link will take you to a new page with subcategories and recommendations for further suggested resources. I think the site is very user friendly and informative.

Kayla Rider January 23, 2010 Overview This website, I believe, will be very useful for pre-service teachers as well as in-service teachers. It is an educational website for ESL students. It has many links within it that show you how to teach or how to use grammar, search for jobs, writing skills, etc. I have yet to use it for anything rather than this evaluation, but I could definitely see myself using it in the future for my students and myself. Content As said before, the content is for ESL teachers and students. It has links for grammar….etc. It has a table of contents of to the side to navigate through its perimeters. If you are stuck on MLA guidelines, it has a link to help you. It can be used for any writing mis-hap or question that you might have. It looks to be credible due to its vast amount of copyright restraints. I believe that overall this educational website can be very useful. Design The overall color scheme is appealing to the eye but does not distract you from its content. It is very easy to navigate through due to its overall set up. The tabs can be easily found, as well as the links in which you might want to navigate to. It has descriptors for its links that allow you to read a summary of what you are getting into. Overall, very effective design.

Lindsey Carter 9-4-2011 Overview: DrGrammar.org is intended for individuals with English questions ranging from grammar and word origins to common errors in English. The site is provided by the University of Northern Iowa and is edited by the UNI Department of Languages and Literature. Overall, I was very impressed by the amount of information the site provided, although it was slightly less organized than I would have hoped. Content: At first look, the basic content of the site and intended audience is very clear. The author of the site is also identified, and a link is available for the user to find out more information about the university. Users may also contact the UNI Department of Languages and Literature via email from the site. A date of the last revision isn't clear, but the copyright date is. All links work perfectly, loading quickly and effectively. The purpose of the site is informational, and it is quite effective and complete. The information on grammar and common mistakes is given along with easy-to-understand examples. The website is free of bias, and additional resources are available via link to Purdue University. Design: The website's homepage is not the most attractive. The title and sponsor of the site are both clear, and an index does exist to guide the user. Directions are in place to help the user navigate the site and find the information they seek, but the titles of the index are not clearly categorized. Again, the date of last revision also isn't clearly identified, but the overall information is helpful to those with English inquiries.

The site is intended to give students an example of the APA format, which is given clearly and effectively. The students will be of the 9th or higher grade level and should be able to follow the instructions and rules set by the site. The site itself also allows students to look into other writing style for future assignments when similar or different styles are required. The site has some visual appeal, an amount set enough to where a student would be able to more likely remember the website when the need for APA style rules are needed. Overall the site is simple enough for the basics allowing students to still try to remain original in their texts without just copying and relying on the site. The general setup of the site is enough to keep interest without interfering with the information it provides.