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Links to Writing Resources
A wealth of information is available from the Internet on just about every writing area.
Assembled here are some links for your writing needs.
Click on one of these links immediately below to jump to a group of links in that category.
Writing in General
Research and Documentation
Sites for Academics
General Comprehensive Sites:
Writing information offered of various sorts, some with many links to other on-line resources on writing, grammar, usage, style (MLA, APA, Chicago), handbooks, plagiarism, thesaurus, dictionary, wordplay, other reference resources:
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On-Line Writing Labs:
OWL's provide writing resources and sometimes personal help for your writing, via e-mail or chat capabilities.
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Additional Sites of Interest:
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More Style, Usage, and Grammar Websites:
11 Rules of Writing - This site is a concise guide to some of the most commonly violated rules of writing.
A Rulebook for Arguments, by Anthony Weston - "This book begins by discussing fairly simple arguments and moves to argumentative essay at the end."
All About Writing! - Over 200 pages of articles on writing and is designed to help everyone improve their writing and editing skills. The process involves looking at grammar, punctuation, and structure in a way that allows you to re-evaluate your writing style and improve the way you communicate in text.
American Heritage Book of English Usage - A powerful, practical and authoritative guide to contemporary English usage that will help you make intelligent decisions when communicating in speech or writing. Site presents sound guidelines and specific controversies in grammar, style, and word choice.
Antagonyms - words that have opposite meanings (e.g., "bad" can mean bad or good depending on usage).
Basic Guide to Essay Writing - a step-by-step guide to writing a basic essay. Includes links to other on-line essay resources.
Big Dog's Grammar - "A bare bones guide to English."
Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation, The
Michael Bonner's Proper Grammar Page
Book of Cliches, The - "The Book of Clichés lists phrases to say in times of trouble in a number of categories."
Citing Electronic Information - How to treat electronic materials when sourcing documents and the instances when this information needs to be described.
ClicheSite.com - Site has a list of clichés 'As long as your arm,' complete with definitions and explanations along with a 'Cliche of the Day.'
Colorado State University Online Writing Lab
Common Errors - discussion of errors in English usage which are so common that some people don't recognise them as errors.
Common Errors in English - site which simply and entertainingly explains a number of common spelling and usage errors in English.
Commonly Confused Words - An alphabetical listing of frequently used and sometimes misused words, with explanations and examples of proper usage.
Copy Editing for Magazines - Editor who has worked for Time provides a structured approach to acquiring skills and coping with special conditions.
Correct Forms of Address - This section provides the correct forms of address for U.S. Public officials, diplomats, religious leaders, royalty, the British peerage, and military personnel.
Daily Grammar - improve your writing with free daily e-mail grammar lessons.
Darling's Guide to Grammar - prepared by Professor of English/Humanities Charles Darling for his English courses at Capital Community-Technical College.
Deadwood Phrases - "Deadwood is as useless in technical documents as it is in trees. Your writing will be clearer if you prune these phrases!"
Economist Style Guide - The Voice of Women on the Web." Wide-ranging topics such as choosing the right summertime wine, budget-travel tips and investment advice.
The Elements of Style - William Strunk, Jr.
English as a Second Language
For English as a Second Language students.
EnglishCLUB.net: Grammar - presents tutorials and quizzes on aspects of grammar such as verb tenses and prepositions.
English Grammar Clinic - your grammar questions answered by professional English language instructors.
English Grammar Links for ESL Students - includes references, exercises and quizzes.
The English Server
Focusing on Words - This advanced English-language site is here as a guide by your side so you can experience the wonder of words and the English language.
Five Paragraph Essay Wizard, The - At this site, you will find the information you need to learn how to write the essay as well as some writing prompts to help you develop skill.
Gender-free Pronoun FAQs - Discusses politically correct alternatives to gendered pronouns.
Glossary of Literary Terms and A Handbook of Rhetorical Devices
Good English - how to write English well.
Grammar and Style Notes - by Jack Lynch
Grammar Bytes - explanations, handouts for students and teachers, and interactive exercises.
Grammar Grabbers - "Professional Tips for the Amateur Writer (a not-so-serious guide)"
Grammar Handbook - Explains and illustrates the basic grammatical rules for parts of speech, phrases, clauses, sentences and sentence elements, and common problems of usage.
Grammar Help Page
Grammar Lady - Dr Mary Bruder fields your grammar questions and posts excerpts from her "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" columns on common problems and guidelines.
Grammar Now - "This is a free site dedicated to answering any grammar, composition, research or formatting question you might have. Send me a grammar question by filling out the form below, and I'll e-mail you a response."
Grant Resources on the Web - Where to look when you need funding
Grammar Slammer Online - online English grammar help. Includes letter writing, confusing words, and easy search engine.
Guide to Grammar & Writing - To write a clear and comprehensive essay or story, you need to be able to write a clear, comprehensive sentence. Site provides a grammar resource guide that will walk you through the basics of good sentence structure and paragraph development.
Handbook of Rhetorical Devices - definitions and examples of more than sixty traditional rhetorical devices, which can be useful in improving the effectiveness, clarity, and enjoyment of your writing.
Heteronyms - words that are spelled identically but have different meanings when pronounced differently (e.g., wind or lead).
History of the English Language - online resources related to the study of the history of English from pre-history to the present day.
How to Write Essays - This site will help you understand how to organize, plan and write essays.
HyperGrammar - Structured and detailed course on literary stylistics produced by the University of Ottawa.
HyperTextBook - Modern English Grammar.
Indispensable Writing Resources - You'll find everything on and off the Net that you could possibly need in writing or researching a paper, including links to all sorts of reference material, links to writing labs, links to Web search engines, and links to writing-related Web sites.
Information and Its Counterfeits - This site will help you be able to distinguish real information from its three lookalikes, or counterfeits: propaganda, misinformation and disinformation. Understanding the counterfeits will enable you to become a much more critical consumer of information.
Inkspot: Resources for Writers
International Society of Rhombi and Thesauri (ISRT) - progressive organization formed to inform the populace about the correct pluralization of English words with roots in Latin.
King's English - HW Fowler's classic reference guide to vocabulary, syntax, punctuation, grammar, and style.
Latin Grammar Aid and Wordlist
LinguaCenter Grammar Sarari, The
Loquacious Language - a regularly appearing language column published by Michael Tseng in his school newspaper, inspired by William Safire.
MLA Bibliographic Citation Form Guide
Modern English Grammar - "Hypertextbook" covering English clauses, phrases, word structure, grammatical style, punctuation and even the Ebonics debate.
North Carolina University Online Writing Lab
Nuts and Bolts Guide to College Writing, The - guide that will help you write better college essays.
OWL: Purdue University On-Line Writing Lab
On-Line English Grammar
Online Styleguide -- National Public Radio. - An alphabetical listing of commonly misused or misunderstood words and concepts -- and explanations of correct punctuation, usage, grammar and pronunciation.
Owl Handouts - ranging from precisely targeted help (Comma vs. the Semicolon in Compound Sentences) to general guidance.
Paradigm Online Writing Assistant - site offers a guide to writing essays and term papers. Modules include choosing a topic, organizing your writing, editing your writing, documenting your research, and writing various kinds of papers: informal, thesis, exploratory, argumentative.
Phrase Finder - Does for phrases what a thesaurus does for words. Give it a word and retrieve a list of related phrases.
Pop-Up Grammar - online English grammar instruction site with interactive quizzes.
Project Bartleby
Proper Title Uses - How to address correspondence to officials in government, the church, foreign service, the armed forces, etc.
Punctuation - Brief discussion of the concept of punctuation, and a complete guide to the functions of punctuation marks.
Punctuation Made Simple
Research Paper Help - This site is a resource to help high school and university students with the process of writing research papers.The links offer instruction and tips for the various stages of writing a research paper.
Revising Prose - site describes twelve basic principles of good prose style and illustrates most of these principles with examples.
Robert's Rules of Order
Simpler Words and Phrases - Instead of this ..., try this ..."
Slot, The: A Spot for Copy Editors- part style manual, part pet-peeve collection, The Slot is one copy editor's look at how to use, and how not to use, the English language.
Storyform - Writers' Resources & Reference
Superteach Grammar Tutor Online - site offers help with using correct verb forms, writing complete sentences, recognizing sentence fragments, and more.
Tools for College Writing - This site is designed to introduce basic skills of college writing strategies.
Tradtional Grammar: An Interactive Book - a complete and free introduction to the basic syntactic structure of Modern English and the most common prescriptive errors in formal writing and how to avoid them.
Trinity College Writing Center
Turabian Citation Generator
Usenet - alt.usage.english - English grammar, word usages, and related topics.
Webcite - an experimental MLA citation generator for electronic resources
Wilton's Etymology Page
Wired Style - principles of English usage in the Digital Age.
Word Detective, The - the online version of Evan Morris's syndicated column
WordNet - Lexical reference system in which nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are organized into synonym sets.
Word Police - "The Word Police are looking for a few good people. As a certified Word Police officer, you will be entitled to issue Grammar Citations when you see or hear crimes against the language. To be inducted into the force, you must pass a Word Police Academy exam."
Word Watch
Word Wizard
World Wide Words - Michael Quinion's language pages include articles, the word hoard, newsworthy words, and usage notes.
Writing a Paper Guide - from LibrarySpot.com
Writing Analyzer - The Writing Analyzer takes any text you submit and represents it in a way that helps you become aware of characteristics of your prose.
Writing Wrong: 10 Common Stumblers - Writing tips on correcting manglers, potholes, wimp words, creationism, vicious verbs, runonandnons, gender benders, reruns, overkill and painful pronouns.
Indispensable Writing Resources - "A Complete Collection of Writing Essentials."
Yahoo! - Grammar, Usage, and Style
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Research Sources on the Internet
Following are some internet directories that may offer more scholarly articles than your typical web search engine,
and are sponsored by university libraries, and are available to any researcher. They don't
require a password and they can be helpful in your research.
Some of these are lists of selected Internet resources available on virtually every topic
imaginable. These have already been evaluated for validity and academic strength.
INFOMINE - (University of California) Annotated and indexed directory of scholarly
Internet resources. May search or browse ten broad categories by subject, keyword,
table of contents or title.
Scout Report Signpost - (University of
Wisconsin) Directory of web sites of interest to the academic and research community.
Users may search the site or browse by subject.
Librarians' index to the Internet - (U of
Cal, Berkeley) A searchable, annotated, subject directory of Internet resources selected
and evaluated by librarians for their usefulness to the public library user's information
needs.
University of California, Berkeley General Directory
English and American Literature - Academic sources and articles.
Social Science Information Gateway - A source of selected, high quality
internet information for researchers and practicioners in the social sciences, business and law.
Purdue University links to sites covering a variety of disciplines, including government sites-
WWW Virtual Library- Independent sources compile this
list rather than a particular university. John Anderson, the creator of Netscape,
started this.
Internet Public Library - Internet information
arranged like a library.
A Guide to Reference Material on the Web and A Guide to Internet Reference Resources -
Both from "Indispensable Writing Resources," these links are probably some of the most comprehensive available in terms of providing links to websites for research. They include libraries on the web, library sponsored Internet databases, and other reference sources.
Virtual Reference Desk -
An online Ask a Librarian, a service of libraries (academic and research, mainly) offered around the country.
American Council of Learned Societies' "On-Line Scholarly Resources" -
Includes access to research libraries, fellowship programs, professional societies.
Ruth H. Hooker Research Library -
Naval research library with many databases for a variety of disciplines and purposes,
including many science and technology resources; some are available to the public.
WebWatch- (Library Journal) Web bibliographies compiled by
librarians that appear monthly in Library Journal.
Argus Clearinghouse- (University of Michigan)
Large collection of Internet bibliographies. Most of the guides are available in
hypertext versions.
C&RL NewsNet Internet Resources -
(College and Research Libraries) Bibliographies written by librarians and published
monthly in C&RL News. All of the guides are available in hypertext versions.
In addition to the above more scholarly sites, for more information on, descriptions of, and links to the major search engines, see: Indispensable Writing Resources, and see also: IPL Web Searching
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Critically Evaluating Research Sources
Once you have found your sources, you will want to evaluate them carefully and
critically. There are many ways to evaluate the value of the sources you've found to decide if
they are good for your paper: relevant, reliable, authoritative, authentic, accurate,
thorough, current, solid, and objective.
Look at the publishing house. Is this article or book published by a respected scholarly journal or scholarly press?
Check the strength and reliability of the research the author has done.
Consider also if you are using primary sources or secondary sources (someone else's work and interpretation which refers back to the primary source.) You should seek out the primary source and look at it yourself and refer to that in your paper.
Use the best edition of your source. Lots of college professors will use their yellowed, underlined, well-thumbed copy of the classic they're writing on, whether or not it is the most accurate and reliable edition, because it is familiar, because it is convenient, because it has their marginal notes. Go ahead and use your favorite copy, but also make sure you have the best edition on hand to refer to and use in your paper.
Look in the bibliographies of the better articles and books for the references they have used. If you find articles on your topic that are referred to several times in many sources, this indicates that said articles are highly respected in the field and have made changes and sparked dialogue on your topic. You will want to be sure to include those articles and books in your research.
Following are some links to websites that have information, checklists, and essays that
can help you evaluate the sources you find. (These are useful for print as well as
on-line sources):
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Documentation/Citation for Research
Once you have found and evaluated your sources, you will want to incorporate their ideas of relevance to your topic into your paper or your scholarship of any type. You may do this in several ways. Through:
paraphrase,
summary, or
quotation.
In whatever way you choose to refer to the information from your sources, you must always give credit, or document, or cite, them -- or you are guilty of plagiarism. This is equally applicable to paraphrase and summary, as well as the more obvious: quotations. The only exception to this is when you paraphrase or summarize the following:
(Quotations must ALWAYS be cited.) Common knowledge is information that appears in multiple sources that can be attributed to no single author. Examples of this may be information as diverse as the distance of the earth from the sun, that Robert Frost wrote "Mending Wall" and was America's poet laureate from 1958 to 1959, or that William Jefferson Clinton was president of the United States from 1992 to 2000 and was impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate. If in doubt as to whether your information is common knowledge, be safe and cite it.
The social sciences use APA (American Psychological Association) format to cite information. The arts and humanities, such as languages and literature, use MLA (Modern Language Association) format. Chicago style is another popular style used in some literature journals as well as in the field of history. If you have a
specific journal in mind for your paper, the editors will usually specify the kind of style they prefer in the submission information found in the first page or two of any issue, or nowadays, on their website. Alternatively, a quick glance at the essays in a current issue of your chosen journal will reveal the style that that journal prefers. (And a close reading of current issues is recommended before submission anyway to determine your essay's appropriateness for that journal.)
A good handbook will explain thoroughly how to document and
format your paper, with information on everything from margins to headings to bibliography
pages. You can gain preliminary information on the major styles at these websites:
All of the above are richly informative resources on documentation styles, but I also recommend reading thoroughly the
style manual/handbook specific your field.
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Sites for Academics: Professional Organizations, Conferences, and Journals
General
Pedagogy, Administration, and The Profession
Technical fields (engineering, computer science, telecommunications, etc.)
English and related fields (languages, literature, popular culture, folklore)
History
Psychology
On-Line Magazines and Academic Journals: Comprehensive Lists
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Grant and Proposal Writing Resources
A Proposal Writing Short Course - from The Foundation Center. Well organized site that also includes information on topics such as the grantseeking process, non-profit formation & management, and corporate philanthropy.
Persuasive Proposal Writing from Bar Ilan University in Israel. This page begins with the statement, "In language, clarity is everything," and then proceeds to suggest a variety of ways that you can improve the clarity of your proposal.
Grants Central Station. has been put together by Jay Mandell at Florida Atlantic University as an organizing point for a variety of different types of information to support the preparation of a grant proposal. Though some of the information is focused specifically on Broward County and Palm Beach County (Florida), there are lots of great links to information on the web.
Elements of a Grant Proposal has been prepared by The Center for Nonprofit Management in Los Angeles. It provides a very concise set of listings of the things to do (and not to do) in preparing a proposal.
Guide to Grant and Proposal Writing prepared and compiled by the Texas Literacy Resource Center at Texas A&M University. Basic information on a variety of aspects of getting a project funded and then maintaining the funding base. Though some of the information is designed specifically for proposal writing in Texas, most ideas are easily transferable.
The Proposal Checklist (from Virginia Commonwealth University) is packed with questions (Is the title descriptive, imaginative and suitable for indexing? Does the project have a strong theoretical or conceptual base? ) in each of 16 different categories that go into creating a viable proposal. An excellent tool to be used when you think you've finished writing your proposal.
Writing for Business and Pleasure is a series of articles (originally written for the Minneapolis Star Tribune) by Stephen Wilbers. Included is "Grant proposals: Writing is just part of the process", "Writing with heart improves odds of getting grant", and "Use the Internet for help with writing grant proposals." Well written with lots of good ideas and hints to be successful in preparing a proposal.
Excellent web site from the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Michigan. Lots of good information on all aspects of proposal writing.
Here's a website that's just packed with all sorts of information. Grantwriting for Educators includes links and citations for everything from Grant Basics, to Searching for Grants on the Web, to The Grant Writing Process. Well worth a visit!
The Guide to Completing a Research Proposal consists of guidelines prepared by the International Development Research Centre (Ottawa, Canada) to cover the major categories required in a proposal and address some general
questions concerning the proposed structure and content of the documentation.
The Beginners Guide to the Research Proposal includes a variety of suggestions on how to get your first proposal onto paper.
Two excellent lists created by the University of Oklahoma to assist anyone trying to prepare a "winning" proposal - Some Reasons Poposals (sic) Fail and Hints for Preparing Funding Proposals.
Proposal Writing: Internet Resources from the Grants Information Center at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.
Well organized listing (with links) of Grants and Related Resources maintained by the Michigan State University Library.
The Community of Science is a
global registry designed to provide accurate, timely, easy-to-access information about what new funding
opportunities exist, and who is working on what subject, and where.
The American Council of Learned Societies: Fellowship and Grant Opportunities
The American Council of Learned Societies: Fellowship Programs, Professional Societies, Research Libraries
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