Lori Hubbard

English 444 – Krause

Print into Web

March 8, 2005

For this project, I chose a multi-genre project I had done for English 517, Doug Baker’s writing assessment class at Eastern Michigan University.  For that research, I chose to explore essay assessing software, looking into how such software works, how it is used for placement tests and in individual classrooms, and if it can be relied upon for accuracy in writing assessment. 

The purpose of this research was to try to educate instructors, administrators, parents and students on this software.  To this end, I chose three genres, one for each principle audience:  a list of pros and cons for instructors and administrators, an Op-Ed article for parents, and a poster/flyer for students. 

I’ve found that this project actually works better as a web project.  Important information, before listed as something like footnotes I could only hope the audiences would take the time to explore, are now easily accessible by a mere click of the mouse.

I’ve created links within the text of the Op-Ed article for even easier access, without creating so many links that it became overwhelming.  The pages are relatively uniform, as most web style guides recommend.  The pages are not flashy; they are simple and easy to navigate.  I feel this style is especially appropriate for this informative site; since the topic leans more toward educating than selling an idea or entertaining an audience, a simple page layout seems most effective.

It was not at all difficult to turn this print research project into a web project.  I think the material lends itself well to the web, and the multiple genres of this project made it rather easy to convert the genres into individual web pages.  Overall, I’m pleased with the results.  I’m sure more could have been done, but as I mentioned previously, I believe in this case, the simpler, the better.