Website Analysis Assignment

In many respects, this assignment is the spitting image of the second assignment, the video analysis, except now we are going to analyze a website. Many of the Savvy Voter criteria that you used in the analysis of the video can be applied to the website, but you'll have to determine that on your own. I'm also providing a guide to website analysis and will describe the assignment in some detail in class.

The essay should use a concept from Part Three of Guns, Germs and Steel as a springboard to the analysis of a website of your choosing that deals with one of the issues Diamond examines in part three. The website should be analyzed using some combination of the PBS Savvy Voter criteria, the website analysis criteria, and the "what you'll want to write about" page of this assignment.

Additionally, this assignment requires that the material from the website presented as evidence in the analysis paragraphs be properly cited and that a works cited page be included. More info on this in the other materials. As with the Video Analysis assignment, build your thesis around either ethos, pathos or logos and how that is important to a reading of your chosen website.

Keep in mind that it is all but impossible to wholly pull one of these elements out to look at it in isolation from the others. The success of the appeal will depend on the content, the bias, the presentation and so on. Keep this inter-connectedness in mind as you develop your thesis and the argument that supports the thesis. We are looking for about 1200 words.

Sample Websites

These sites are samples/suggestions only. You are welcome to find a website of your own to work with.

1. Infectious Disease
2. Infectious Disease Society of America
3. Generation Rescue
4. Mom's Against Mercury
5. Official Mad Cow Disease Home Page
6. Literacy.org
7. The Literacy Site
8. Literacy Project
9. International Phonetic Alphabet
10. Phaistos Disk Decipherment
11. Phaistos Disc Wikipedia
12. Wisegeek: What is a Nation-State?
13. American Kleptocracy
14. Egalitarianism (Stanford Encyclopedia of of Philosophy)
15. Occupy Wall Street
16. Tea Party Express

Assignment Goals

Passing Portfolio Evaluations

While making your view on the issue clear and clearly supported with examples from your the reading, you also want to compose a work that is technically solid and will pass portfolio evaluations. See the following goals for more on this.

Citing and Integrating Sources

This is our first assignment where cited and effectively incorporated sources are a required component. Proper in-text (sometimes called parenthetical) citations are required for quoted and paraphrased material and a works cited page is required as well. We'll go over how to do this.

Getting Work Done on Time

When a class meets just twice a week, the time frame seems accelerated, and in many ways it is. See the course schedule for due dates. The draft for evaluation must be posted in your blog before the start of class on the due date. The draft for grading should be printed out before the start of class. There will be further opportunity for revision following the initial/ preliminary grading process.

Effective Analysis

In order to provide an effective analytical look at the issue as you see it, there are several elements the essay must contain. The first is a thesis statement that makes a clear claim about the value of the website in relation to the chosen issue. Following that thesis, there must be specific examples used to illustrate each point. There must also be some explanation tying the evidence back to the thesis, some interpretation of the data on your part. As the writer, it is your job to tell your reader why the evidence you present matters. You should consider making use of the rhetorical triangle, the relationship between the writer (ethos), reader (pathos) and text (logos) as you examine the issue and discuss the manner in which the website seems
to make meaning and/or sway thinking.

Grammar and mechanics

Solid grammar and mechanics are expected. As this is the second essay, there will be some things pointed out to you in the first essay that you are expected to address, and ideally, remedy.

Evaluation

General Criteria

The essay is expected to have a thesis that is clearly arguable and worth the reader's time to consider. The evidence in the body of the essay must provide specific descriptions of the video elements being discussed There must also be some explanation making clear how these pieces of evidence are supporting the essay's thesis. There must also be some reasonable organizational structure along with clearly effective grammar and mechanics.

Self Evaluation

In a brief paragraph, describe what you learned in writing this assignment. If you did not submit an essay for evaluation, or receive essays for evaluation, be sure to address this. You need to include the names of your peers along with your description of their responses to your work. Describe how this, or anything else, affected your ability to do your best work. Turn this in with your final draft.