Julie Melson

Website Analysis

The website I chose is entitled Medieval Lit and is located at http://home.tampabay.rr.com/gifted/medievallit.html. I evaluated this website taking into consideration relevance, presentation, and ease of use.

As far as I could tell, this site was created to be an assignment for gifted 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th graders [[^and] designed to teach them more about the Middle Ages and its literature. I could not find out who published the website because the contact information provided was for a Yahoo account and there was no link to a sponsoring website or to find out who put the page together.

At the top there is an overview of their assignments and links to more specific directions, but this is irrelevant to the average person surfing the net in search of information on the Middle Ages. At the bottom of the page there is a table of links created so that the kids could [^carry out/engage in?] research for their assignment. At the top of the table there are 23 links that were not in a particular category like the rest of the table. Six of those links are broken and there is one inappropriate link that leads to a commercial website entitled ‘Fun Facts and Trivia’.[<=Closing quotation marks should follow the final punctuation or a comma in U.S. usage.]

Under the subject heading “The Black Death” there are four links. Three are broken, but the working link provides a good deal of helpful information on the subject. Under “Nobility” there are 25 links covering topics from knighthood, to courtly love, to Machiavelli. The question that came to mind as I surfed the links was: what does courtly love and Machiavelli have to do with nobility? There arqe seven broken links, one moved link and one link that leads to inappropriate information on astrological signs and what kind of lover you are. The rest of the links have information that could be considered useful depending greatly on what the individual is looking for.

Under “Literature” there are 10 links, half of which are broken. The information provided sheds little light on medieval literature as it only covers [re-punctuate=>Chaucer’s ‘Merchants Tale’, Dante’s ‘Inferno’ and some basic information on Robin Hood and Sir Gawain.] This is a very small sampling of Medieval Literature and it does not provide any full texts, simply badly written overviews. Under the subject “Origins of Names” there are three links, one of which is broken and another leads to irrelevant information. The one working link leads to a rather long article on surnames that may be useful under certain circumstances.

Under “Maps of Medieval Lands” there are four links. The link to “France” actually leads to a map of England and the link to “Italy” leads to an incomplete map of Italy. Under “Clergy” there are 17 links, four of which are broken. I found myself confused and at a loss as to why the Sistine Chapel, Crusades, Joan of Arc, and Mystery, Miracle and Morality Plays are contained under this particular heading. Though they are indirectly related to the clergy, they should have been classified under different headings. Under “The Middle Class” there are 13 links. Six are broken and one leads to irrelevant information. I am confused as to why Marco Polo is listed under this heading. Under the category “etc.” there are eight links, two of which are broken. These subjects vary widely covering topics such as the Inquisition, Eleanor of Aquataine, and medieval foods.

To summarize, there are [^a total of] 113 links total. 37 are broken and 6 are inappropriate or unhelpful. This website turned out to not be as helpful as I thought it would be. In fact I would only recommend it if a person has a great deal of time to sift through the widely varying subjects. Generally I would not recommend this website because there are other, more helpful, websites and libraries out there.