Late assignments will be marked down one whole letter grade for each 24 hour period that they are late.
Turn in the assignment by creating a link from your American Studies 418p launching pad to a new Web page where you have mounted the assignment.
1. Select a topic pertaining to American Culture that you are interested in, for example: basketball, hip hop, talk shows, horror films, etc.
2. Go to the University of Maryland Library Web Site and search for information pertaining to your topic using the following online resources: Project Muse (a collection of electronic journals which can only be accessed on the Web if you're using a University of Maryland account), WORLDCAT (an online catalogue of books), an index pertaining to history, social science, or the arts and humanities, and an encyclopedia. Note: Poke around the Library Web site and see if you can find links to these resources on your own.
3. Search the Web for Web sites pertaining to your topic using either hotbot or dogpile.
4. Select a site and, in approximately 900 words, write an ESSAY which evaluates it according to the criteria in Evaluating Web Resources AND Information Literacy: The Web is not an Encyclopedia. Compare the quality of the information found in this Web Site to the information which the more traditional resources on the Library's Web site pointed you toward. You may also bring in other criteria which you find relevant for evaluating Web sites; just make sure you adequately explain these alternative criteria prior to applying them to your selected site.
Composition Hint: You may want to compose your essay in your regular word processing program then simply cut and paste it into a pico file in your WAM account. Once there you can format it using the HTML codes learned in class on Monday.
To see a good example of a similar assignment from last semester click here. Please note, however, that your assignment is slightly different so don't take this as an absolute model.
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For more information contact Debra DeRuyver, Department of American Studies, 2125 Taliaferro Hall, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742. Last updated on Jan. 2, 1999.