Paper #1 Evaluation Essay
ENGLISH 102
PAPER #1: Evaluation of a Website
Minimum Word Count: 750-1000 words
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
To understand the broader concept of “text” as a combination of visual, verbal, and contextual information.
To understand the role of audience in understanding the information.
To use skills in writing summary, analysis, interpretation, and evaluation.
To incorporate a graphic element as visual support in the textual analysis.
To quote from and document an online source correctly.
ASSIGNMENT:
Read R-2 and review all other elements of Evaluation and Research in the Little Seagull and Chapter 10, Evaluations in Everything’s an Argument.
Select a Website related to the course novel of your own choosing for this evaluation assignment. However, consider the requirements of this assignment before deciding upon the site since some sites may lend themselves to evaluations better than others. Your Website MUST relate to the paperback for the course with the assumption that you will utilize the website as a source for your final essay.
The use of first or second person in this assignment (I, me, my, us, we, our, you, etc.) is unacceptable. If you use first person, you will be required to revise and re-submit the assignment. Additionally, you must master MLA format for this course including but not limited to the header, heading, title, Times New Roman 12 pt font, spacing, works cited, etc. If you use first person or do not use MLA format, you will be required to revise and resubmit the assignment. The departmental late policy will apply for either of these errors.
Include at least one screen capture, placed after the second paragraph (the summarizing paragraph) of your paper. See the handout on Using Graphics for Word 2007 and 2010 posted in Angel for help with this assignment. Screen captures are very easy in 2010 since an icon is available under Insert.
Prepare a paper of 750-1000 words. Include brief quotations from the Website in your body paragraphs, and document the site at the end of the paper. The paper needs the following parts:
Introduction—provides a brief summary, a context for analysis, and an evaluative thesis.
Criteria/Body Paragraphs—decide on an order for analyzing the Website and structure paragraphs accordingly. The first body paragraph should have a more detailed summary of the parts or features of the Website. These three criteria are standard ways of looking at a Website:
Design—review the effectiveness and eye appeal of backgrounds, color combinations, decorative graphics, and thumbnails. Consider clutter, slow download, and mismatches between purpose, audience, and design.
Readability—review the text/wording for ease of reading, organization, headings, chunking, and simplicity. Consider length of passages, size of fonts, legibility of ornamental fonts, faulty grammar, and lack of parallelism.
Navigation—identify the presence and ease of use of the site map, table of contents, link to top, link to home, and textual navigation links. Test the links for ease of use.
Conclusion—revisit your thesis without exact repetition. Identify implications of your findings.
This and all assignments must be saved as Word documents. This is a requirement of the course. If you do not save your file correctly, it will not be accepted and if re-submitted will be considered late. If you do not have this option on your computer, JJC has computers on campus that do.
Please note that while the website must be related in some way to the course novel, Essay #1 itself is NOT related to the novel in any way at all.
Direct quotes are not required for this assignment and should be used sparingly if at all (that means 1-2 at the MOST).
You should only have ONE source–the website itself–in your works cited or at the end of the paper.