"Write on Time: A Trio of Online Writing Tools Brings Out the Wordsmith in each Student" - An article review and summary.

Essay by eagageCollege, UndergraduateA-, February 2007

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Although many schools and universities offer writing and tutor centers, there is now a new approach to these services. Pearson's WriteToLearn, Vantage Learning's MyAcess!, and Criterion from ETS are online writing centers that provide opportunities for students to submit their work and give specific feedback while allowing the student to revise and resubmit their work. Tutorials are also given to help the student with their writing abilities. These site allow the teacher to see how the students are performing in specific skill sets, such as grammar and mechanics, which allows the teacher to see the areas that students may need more teaching in.

The first site, Pearson WriteToLearn, is computer graded site that uses 30 reading sections, which the student read and summarizes. After the student enters their work, they quickly receive a detailed report on how well they covered the main points of the reading. As well as testing the student's ability to convey key points, the program checks for errors in copying, spelling, redundancy, and irrelevancy.

When an error is caught the student can study a brief tutorial pertaining to the area in which help was needed. The program's ability to check for copying also allows students to learn when they have borrowed too much from the original source, which helps the instructors to teach the students about plagiarism. Another aspect of Pearson WriteToLearn is the essay assignment section. The teacher can pick from 50-plus essay assignments - grade levels 4-12, subject area, and writing genre - and then determine how the essay will be graded whether by content, style, and mechanics. After the student completes the assignment they submit the essay and in seconds receive an evaluation of their work. Some cons of this tutorial website are that students may find reading their results to be...