Team+2,+ref+log+2b

Jewell, R. (2009). //Online grammar handbook//. Retrieved (2010, February 20) from []
 * Team 2, Reference log 2b: Yearbooks & handbooks ||  ||<   ||
 * Reviewed by Sarah ||

The //Online Grammar Handbook// is amazing. From the beginning, everything is spelled out for the reader. The site itself is quite busy to look at, but it is easy to read and navigate. Clicking on links takes you either to another page or to a different website with the searched for information. One of the best links was that of citations. When clicking there, I was taken to a different page that had many websites listed for MLA, APA and other types of citations. To have all of that information at your fingertips would be a lifesaver for students. Although I thought that my favorite link would be the one that includes sample papers, I found that many of the links from there to the papers were bad. This was disappointing until I realized that students could use one of the links that shows how to write an essay. Many students really have no idea how to write that first big paper and [|this] link will help them with that. All of the information included here is helpful. Students will find that any of the links that will work, are useful. While the website is somewhat busy looking and could be overwhelming, the information is quite extensive and useful to students who are writing.

Grades: 7th grade and up. Mostly middle to high school would benefit, but advanced upper elementary students would find some of the information useful.

Subject(s): Any Rating: 6, due to the busy visuals of the site and many bad links. The site has not been updated since June 2009.
 * ||< //Sabrina's// comment : I agree with Sarah's review and Lisa's comment. The site does seem geared towards high school students, and it has a lot of very useful information. From getting insight on how to write papers to guidance on APA or MLA styles, this source does a good job of supplying crucial information to students in an easy to access format. I definitely agree that the site is "busy" and could probably be organized a little better. As a teacher or media specialist, I would want to sit down and really see what all the site has to offer so that I can help students really benefit from it.

//Lisa's// comment : I checked out only two links from this website, which were not broken. However, the one link I was very excited about was somewhat disappointing. My heart skipped when I saw free full online books, but when I checked books by authors I consider mainstream or popular for children's or adult literature, I was disappointed. My basis for popular must be very unpopular. I checked Sartre, Camus, Riordan, and Paolini without much success. Because of my poor findings, I lost interest in the website altogether. I did notice several links to what I consider to be useful information for high school students though, so that was nice to see as a media specialist wannabe. || Bartlett, John. (2010). “Familiar quotations”. Retrieved from [] Bartlett’s Quotations, in print form, is in its 10th edition and contains material that was added after John Bartlett’s death in 1905. In electronic form, over 11,000 searchable quotations can be found through Bartleby.com. Bartleby.com is a website that provides students, researchers, and “the intellectually curious” with free, unlimited access to books and information on the web. Through the Bartlett’s link, users can search using keywords to find quotes from classic and modern literature. It is an easy site to navigate, and it also offers several features. When completing a keyword search, users can choose to search Bartlett’s or Respectfully Quoted. Instead of a keyword search, users can also use different indexes to find the quotations. The Chronologic index of author’s “encourages tracing the evolution of quotations over time via thousands of hyperlinked footnotes”. Basically, this index allows the user to search through author’s in a chronological order. (For example: the list begins with Geoffrey Chaucer c. 1340-1400 and goes in order through Edmond Rostand c. 1868-1918). This index also provides links to quotes from the Old and New Testament of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. Searching authors in chronological order will be beneficial to students who are researching specific time periods instead of specific authors. For those students who are looking for quotes by a specific author, they can do that very quickly using the Alphabetic index of authors. The last index is the Concordance Index to Quotations. Here, the user can browse keywords alphabetically. To get a feel for the website, I chose to do a basic search using the keyword “love”. My search resulted in 537 relevant hits. Each hit is listed with a number, which I think correlates to the print version of Bartlett’s. I selected #8272 and saw the following information: author- miscellaneous, quote-“Love divine, all love excelling, Joy of Heaven to earth come down,” and attribution- Divine Love. I also searched other random keywords and received multiple hits for each one. Overall, I think this can be a great reference source for students who need quotations to add to papers, projects, etc. Teachers could also use it to find quotations for students to analyze and reflect on. It is a free source and surprisingly has access to a large range of information. My only concern about this site is the advertisements that could possible come along with it. When I accessed the page, along the top and side, were two “animated” females wearing bikinis to advertise a product that helps create “tiny bellies”. The pictures weren’t really inappropriate, but they aren’t what need to be seen across the computers in the media center. I looked at the website from my home computer, so I’m hoping Internet filters might catch the images and just display the actual page and results. Grade Level: 7-12 Subject Areas: Predominately English/Language Arts Quality Rating: 7 (ease of use and options for searching but lower for advertisements)   ||   ||<  //Sarah's// comment : I had originally planned to include this site in my reference log, but when I went there, it appeared to me to be just a very limited site, so I went elsewhere. After realizing I could search, I went with the word "dog" and came up with 37 relevant results, the first two of which were biblical in nature. The results were all useful and I can see how this site would be useful to high school aged students. The banner ads (for me) were not inappropriate, I think from Publix, but a pop-up ad for gamefly kept appearing. Students would find that irresistible and have the tendency to search there, instead. Overall, this is a nice site to find quotations on any subject.
 * Reviewed by //Sabrina//

//Lisa's// comment : I became lost in looking at quotes from King Lear and Yeats' poems before I realized I had spent a lot of time in this site. I performed a search on "death" with 308 results. As for Sarah and Sabrina, the first results to come back were from the Bible and the others seemed to be listed in order by date of occurrence. For students doing literary research, it is a useful tool for quotations on themes such as "death" or "love." || //Sparknotes.// (2010). Retrieved February 13, 2010, from []
 * Reviewed by //Lisa// ||

Aside from the instant feeling as if I’m reading //Teen Vogue//, this website has some very useful academic information for high school students. The characteristics I do not like include advertisements spread over every page I visited, and the advice column scripts on the home page covering topics such as “I will MAKE him love me! Tying yourself to your crush is a bad idea, Try this instead…”. Topics like these will surely draw in teen web users who, we can only hope, will find the academic information useful, too.

There are plenty of things to like on this website though. Sparknotes is the real reason I came to this site for a review, so I will cover that first. Sometimes reading the book for a Literature test is not enough. Sparknotes can help students just as Cliff Notes helped high school students of my generation understand classical and modern literature. There are hundreds of books covered in Sparknotes, and the coverage is extensive. For each title, one will find the following sections: Context; Plot Overview; Character List; Character Analysis; Themes, Motifs, and Symbols; Summary and Analysis for each chapter; Important Quotations Explained; Key Facts; Study Questions and Suggested Essay Topics; Quiz; Suggestions for Further Reading; How to Cite This Sparknote. I chose __The Secret Garden__, and briefly reviewed the plot overview, the themes, motifs, and symbols, and then I took the quiz (although I haven’t read the book in years). I barely received over 50%, but if I had reviewed every section of the sparknote for __The Secret Garden__, I would have passed with flying colors. In combination with reading the required book, any student would benefit from using sparknotes to further extend one’s knowledge of the reading.

The other interesting section on the website is called “No Fear Shakespeare.” The reader can choose from a number of his plays and sonnets to see the original language for each scene for each act compared side by side with modern language to get a better understanding of what Shakespearean language really meant. Students of English Literature will enjoy seeing the words that may confuse them translated into everyday language.

Finally, there are two sections that high school students who plan to attend college will enjoy having at their hands at no cost. One is called “SparkCollege,” and it provides tips and advice on admissions, financial aid, and test preparations. There is an advice blog, The College Advisor, where students can post concerns about any topic about college and receive responses from others, such as how to make one’s application standout from the rest. There is also a column about writing style and grammar called “Ask Miss Marm” available at SparkCollege. It contains helpful suggestions about writing thesis statements and watching for common grammar mistakes in speech and writing. Finally, there is another tab one can choose called “Test prep” which has great advice on taking SAT, ACT, AP Subject Tests, and GRE exams. There are practice tests for those listed above as well as information on what the tests are like. Additionally, there is a blog column which one can post concerns about testing and receive advice from others: it is called “Test Prep Tutor.” Miss Marm provides even more helpful advice.

The site is extremely useful for those who take its resources seriously. Students taking literature classes will love sparknotes, and high school juniors and seniors will find useful information on preparing for college and entrance exams. Teachers may encourage their students to use this resource or may discourage it depending h=on whether or not the students use sparknotes to supplement or replace reading assignments. I would have loved to have had this website to supplement my studies of works of literature instead of spending too much money on Cliff Notes. All students should at least have the knowledge that this useful handbook exists, and choose to do with it what they may.

Grades: //HIGH SCHOOL// Subject(s): //Literature, College Prep// Rating: // 8 //
 * ||< //Sarah's// comment : Lisa's comments made me laugh. My teenage daughter LOVES //Teen Vogue.// I showed her this site and she thought it was fabulous. Having looked over a companion site [|No Fear Shakespeare,]this one is more busy to look at, but includes equally as much, if not more, information. Especially pleasing is having the spark notes listed down the left-hand side of the page. The information included here is enormous; granted one has to dig through loads of teen-angst type issues, but the educational capacity is large. I understand why this site is set up the way it is. High school students will find it appealing for it's pop culture ideals as well as the information available. Teachers would be remiss in not using the information here or at least pointing students in its direction.

//Sabrina's// comment : I am very familiar with this reference source, and I agree that it is very useful for students; however, as an English teacher, I hesitate to tell students about this "up-front". I definitely believe that it is very helpful for students to read sparknotes or cliffnotes AS they read or AFTER they read a book, play, etc. Unfortunately, students today take advantage of sites like this and use the information as a substitute for the book. As a teacher, I use this source a lot. When teaching a new novel, I will use this site as a starting point for discussions on theme, motifs, characters analysis, etc. Also, this semester I am teaching SAT Prep, so I am very excited to come across the test prep material on this site. ||