The Online Writing Lab During my freshman year at Aims I was having to complete these difficult writing assignments. At first I was struggling, but then I was introduced to the Aims OWL by my professor in my English 121 class. From The Aims OWL I was able to get the writing help that I needed to become successful in my English class. English 121 students who are struggling in their writing should consider using the Aims OWL because it is an incredibly credible, relevant, reliable, and easy to understand resource. The credibility of the Aims OWL is excellent. The reason it is excellent is because the website itself was created by a member of Aims, the highest ranked community college in the state. Its creator, Jared Merk, is more than qualified to create this . Merk, while pursuing his masters degree in creative writing, has been teaching both composition and technical writing at Aims for eight years. He has also published several books and is published for his nonfiction literature in a number of magazines and journals. Jared Mark also provides his email address on the Aims OWL for those that have questions or suggestions regarding the site or his credentials. Overall, the Aims OWL is a very credible source for English 121 students that are looking for writing help. The relevance of the Aims OWL “Grammar and Punctuation” portion is excellent for English 121 students. This portion of the site offers students help for many topics such as: Comma Rules, Comma splices, Fused Sentences, Run-Ons, Fragments, Independent vs. Dependent, Parts of Speech, Using Conjunctions, Colon Use, Semicolon Use, Different sentence types, pronoun agreement, and even provides exercises for some topics. Each bullet point expands into a deeply informed page explaining the rules and giving examples for each topic. For example the “Fragments” section of the site includes: the rules for using fragments, What fragments are and how they are used, and four examples on how to used fragments properly and improperly. This offers great and detailed support for English 121 students that are in need of building their grammar and punctuation skills in order to become better writers. The relevance of the “Common Writing Assignments” section is another excellent and organized portion of the Aims OWL. It provides examples of different types of essays and assignments that students will need to know while in English 121. The topics provided include: personal essays, responsive essays, evaluation essays, as well as problem-reducing, investigative, and argumentative essays. It even gives detailed information about summarizing, common logical fallacies, how to write when writing for literature and even annotated bibliographies. Each and every topic that the Aims OWL provides is filled with tips, explanations, examples, and steps students need in order to become successful in their English 121 class. The relevance of the “Research” section of the Aims OWL
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The recent update for the Aims OWL is a large improvement from its former boring and hard-to-look-at state. It is much easier for beginning users to navigate throughout the site as well as locate wanted information. There is a new home page which includes all six topics for writing in large colored boxes which makes it easier for students to find certain topics such as “Grammar & Punctuation.” Each section of each topic is filled with many bulleted points containing more information about that section. The information given by these sections is clear and very informative for student writers. It provides examples, help, definitions, tips, and steps on things such as finding topics to write about, and even how to write effective thesis statements. Each section of the OWL clearly explains how to deal with any writing issue students might be having in a very clear and organized manner. The currency of the Aims OWL is excellent in some regards but lacking in others. Although the Aims OWL has been updated as of October of 2015, it had not been updated for over two years before then. Seeing that Merk is striving for his masters in creative writing, it would make sense for him to incorporate what he has learned into a “Creative Writing” section of the OWL to keep it updated and full of information. However, the OWL does have excellent links which remain current and reliable. All of the OWL’s information is up-to-date and follow the writing process standards such as MLA and APA
The recent update for the Aims OWL is a large improvement from its former boring and hard-to-look-at state. It is much easier for beginning users to navigate throughout the site as well as locate wanted information. There is a new home page which includes all six topics for writing in large colored boxes which makes it easier for students to find certain topics such as “Grammar & Punctuation.” Each section of each topic is filled with many bulleted points containing more information about that section. The information given by these sections is clear and very informative for student writers. It provides examples, help, definitions, tips, and steps on things such as finding topics to write about, and even how to write effective thesis statements. Each section of the OWL clearly explains how to deal with any writing issue students might be having in a very clear and organized manner. The currency of the Aims OWL is excellent in some regards but lacking in others. Although the Aims OWL has been updated as of October of 2015, it had not been updated for over two years before then. Seeing that Merk is striving for his masters in creative writing, it would make sense for him to incorporate what he has learned into a “Creative Writing” section of the OWL to keep it updated and full of information. However, the OWL does have excellent links which remain current and reliable. All of the OWL’s information is up-to-date and follow the writing process standards such as MLA and APA