Peer Review

The MLA Format Avoiding Plagiarism and Documenting Sources

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Overview:: This self-paced interactive tutorial covers the topic of MLA format, including paper and citation formatting along with information on plagiarism. The target audience is high school students and lower division undergraduate students. The learning goal for this tutorial is for users to walk away with an understanding of what MLA format is, why it's important, how to avoid plagiarism, and how to properly cite sources in MLA format. This resource consists of text, embedded tutorials, links to related sources, glossary terms, and quizzes.
Type of Material:: Tutorial.
Recommended Uses:: In class, homework, individual.
Technical Requirements:: Web Browser: Internet Explorer 5.5 or above, Netscape 6.x or above, Mozilla/Firefox, or Apple Safari 1.x or higher. Flash Player 8 or higher and Adobe Reader.
Identify Major Learning Goals:: Students will develop a deeper understanding of the MLA format, be able to accurately identify plagiarism, and know how to create a paper using MLA format.
Target Student Population:: The target audience is high school students or lower division undergraduate college students.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: Basic computer and web navigation skills are needed.

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Strengths:: This resource provides the basics on MLA format and is great for it's target audience. The content is presented in a way that is clear and easy to understand, providing learning activities so students can test their knowledge as they make their way through the tutorial. It is self-contained so it can be used for students who want to learn on their own, but is also a great supplemental resource that could be used in various class situations. Everything an undergraduate needs to know about MLA is covered, including what plagiarism is and how to avoid it.
Concerns:: The section on special sources could include more relevant and up-to-date sources, such as government documents and online sources like Twitter, blogs or discussion forums.

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Strengths:: The quiz questions and matching activities make this tutorial an effective learning tool. Students are tested on key concepts as they progress through this tutorial. Because it's self-paced learners control how fast or slow they go, including the ability to go back and review information. Throughout the tutorial there are links to outside resources for those students who want more information on particular topics.
Concerns:: It takes around an hour to get through this whole tutorial and there are sections that could be combined to make it more efficient, e.g. all information relating to a works cited page.

Rating:
Strengths:: This tutorial is very easy to navigate and use. Distracting design elements are minimized. Because interactivity is high it is a very engaging tool for students. The first screen clearly describes what students can expect in the tutorial, how to use links and self-checks, and provides instructions for printing score summaries. Each page or section is a manageable length which helps keep students from feeling overwhelmed with sections that have more text. Jargon or terminology is highlighted in green with “text popper” and definitions.
Concerns:: The contents link that provides a table of contents for the tutorial is great, however there are issues with visibility.

Other Issues and Comments:: In the "anatomy of a citation" section it might be helpful to include templates along with example citations. For the example of an article from a database there is no mention of the criteria,"date accessed"; it just appears in the example. The essentials pages should be combined with everything else. For example all information about "works cited" and "quotations and punctuation" pages should be grouped, or at least moved closer to the "in-text documentation" section. Some of the hyperlinks do not consistently open in another window, instead opening in the same window. Page 31 was not working. All that appeared was a big empty box that said "typesetting" with a bike that had wheels that were moving. This result occurred in three different browsers.
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