Roane State Community College

We erred in publishing this review on two counts (in our view). First, we accepted the review's premise without considering that it's unfair, really, to rate an OWL on a category that that it doesn't claim to support, mainly accepting work from writers over the net. Second, we included in our review, thinking it wouldn't be a problem, the OWL's graphic. Therefore, the graphic has been removed from our website; however, we've left in the link we did have to it in order to show where it had been. The annotations you find here are placed here for two reasons. First, though this review itself has been removed from the collection of OWL reviews of which it was originally a part, we realize that this page can still be found by a search engine. We're leaving this page on our website because even though it should have been more closely considered by myself at the time of the review, and even though I should have noticed more carefully the false premise underwhich it was published, the fact is this review did run and it is part of our archival history. Which brings me to point two: the editorial staff agreed that while we should correct our mistakes, it would be dishonest to simply erase the record, to alter history. And so these annotations sit and this review remains part of our record.
--Nick Carbone

Despite its rather low overall rating, this OWL provides some of the best resources we've seen. There are numerous links that pertain to a variety of subjects. Of course, there are the typical links to writing and research aids; however, there are also links to sources that provide help with résumé and webpage writing. In fact, there are so many different links that navigation can be a bit confusing. It is also important to note that paper submission is not included on this site.

Ease of Navigation

Non-Techie Perspective:

The Roane State Community College OWL is concisely organized on the cover page with many easy-to-access links. These links are to other online resources. Unfortunately, the writing center will not take papers via email, and consequently it can not be considered an online lab in the truest sense. The Roane State Community College OWL offers an "owl chat" room, but only the students from Roane College have access. I give the Roane State Community College OWL 2 hoots. HOOT HOOT

Techie Perspective:

Rating: 3 Hoots

The first thing that struck me about this site was the amount of information on the main page. There were links on the first page to help with almost any kind of writing. The information was overwhelming, and the text font was a bit small and hard to read. The layout did not make a lot of sense either.

I was not impressed with this site. The only thing I really liked was their owl graphic, but it was the only graphic they used. It was not very user friendly and, as stated, information overload was overwhelming.

Feedback on Submitted Paper

This webpage is a description of the college's walk-in tutoring center. This site is not a full-fledged OWL, therefore the test paper could not be submitted and a rating of "one" is given.
Tutoring services are available only to currently enrolled Roane State students.

Turnaround time: Not applicable.
Promised turnaround: Not applicable.
Day submitted: Not applicable.
Day of response: Not applicable.

Format for submission: Not applicable.

Difficulty level: Not applicable.

Amount of feedback: Not applicable.

Quality of feedback: Not applicable.

Staff qualifications: RSCC's tutors are writing "specialists" available by appointment.

Additional features: Help is offered by phone for questions about "grammar, word usage, punctuation, and capitalization." There is also an "OWL Chat" feature that puts users in a chat room with RSCC tutors. However, tutors are not always available and appointments are requested. The site offers a large number of handouts as well as links to other OWLs.

Overall Rating: 1 Hoot

Handouts

This OWL's handouts were very helpful--when you could find them. The site had numerous options to locate help with everything from sexist language to comma splices. In fact, this OWL had too many sections. Looking for a handout took longer than fixing the problem. Another problems I found with Roane's handouts is that they are all links to other colleges. I did not find any handouts that originated from Roane. Yet another difficulty is that the "elementary" grammar handouts were not elementary at all. The language and symbols used could only be understood by an English major.

The handout page is easy to get to from the main page, and because of the number of handouts I give RSCC 3 hoots.

Other Resources

Composition, documentation, and research--contains a long list of writing aids including items like "Writing Argumentative Essays" and "Tips for Conducting Interviews."
Writing Resources--an excellent list of links to a variety of resources, such as The World Atlas and a grammar hotline that anyone can call for help. This section also provides a link to Purdue's Virtual Reference Desk.
Education/Professional Media, Local--a variety of resource links, such as the Library of Congress and the Search ERIC database.
Links to other OWLs, including Purdue's well-known OWL
Four articles about writing and using the internet, for example, "MOOving Along the Information Superhighway: Writing Centers in Cyberspace."
Links to sites for Resume Help (mostly articles from Purdue's site)
Links to Web writing help, such as "Doctor HTML," whose primary focus is to "provide a clear, easy-to-use report of information that is relevant to improving your Web page."
Roane State, by far, contains the most and best extra features. Many of the other sites simply provide links to information that could be easily found by an Internet search engine.

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