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HomeArticlesTips And ToolsWriting & Essay Resources
There are few tasks that require the time or energy an essay demands. Essays have been known to alter the fabric of time so that a leisurely evening of writing turns into a morning of frantic editing. For those of you who know the fear a blinking cursor on a blank page can inspire, we've prepared a list of the best resources on the web to make writing papers faster, simpler, and less stressful.
From choosing a topic, to beating writer's block, to constructing paragraphs, all the way up to editing your final draft, these resources cover everything an essayist could want help with. With the help of the links below, you can start seeing less of the professor's red pen and more of what you're capable of as a writer.
General - Proofreading - Grammar - Punctuation - Style Guides - Typing - Rhetoric - Evaluating Sources
Top 5 Writing Resources CollegeWriting.org is a free online writing and rhetoric textbook that site goes into impressive detail on the various types of essays. This resource also lays out how to compose papers in the various styles such as literary criticism, rhetorical analysis, and historiography, as well as covering the more conventional essay genres. The Forest of Rhetoric delves deeply into the origins of classical and Renaissance rhetoric, it manages surprising relevance to the modern essay. A list of rhetorical devices on the right-hand side of the page is a gold mine of ideas for spicing up a paper with an unusual persuasive technique, and the background history of rhetoric on the left is a great breakdown of the various components of persuasion. The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing includes a very thorough database of writing resources. As the name implies, it focuses on the technical aspects of writing like sentence structure and tenses, but it also addresses broader topics like voice and tone. ScribblePad focuses on the creative side of writing, whether it's places to look for ideas or how to channel your emotions into your work. Some of the information focuses on creative writing specifically, but there's plenty of content on essays and many of the creative writing articles contain good advice that applies to academic writing as well as fiction. Sin and Syntax features wicked prose. If ordinary style manuals were loaves of bread, Sin and Syntax would be red velvet cake with chocolate fudge sauce. As the writer of one of the few style guides to move beyond describing merely grammatically correct writing into describing fascinating, enriching, flavorful and distinctive prose, Constance Hale continues her crusade to help make your work sizzle on the page in this not-to-be-missed online forum.
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Proofreading
Can't seem to get the grades you want on your papers? Don't get discouraged. Writing takes practice and time. Compiled below are the best resource guides both on and off the Internet on proofreading. Before beginning your next paper, take a moment to peruse these sites. By simply learning some basic tricks of the trade, you will be far better off when tackling your next assignment.
BBC has a fantastic resource for aspiring proofreaders that includes an introduction to proofreading and how to avoid common mistakes, printable practice worksheets, and a proofreading quiz to test your knowledge. Colorado State University has a section on its website entitled Proofreading Strategies. It covers how to conquer problem areas, provides a proofreading checklist
Tiffany Jewellery, and has a sample. Common Proofreading Symbols lists, as the title suggests, common proofreading symbols. This can be incredibly helpful for students who get papers back marked up in red ink and can't decipher the teachers' seemingly foreign language. Purdue Online Writing Lab has compiled perhaps the best proofreading resource on the Web. It has general strategies, sections on proofreading for errors, proofreading for suggestions, revising for cohesion, and steps for revising. It also has excellent suggested resources. Quick and Dirty Tips' Grammar Girl gives excellent and concise advice for anybody looking to improve their proofreading skills quickly. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has a great proofreading page that includes tips, advice on editing for structure, clarity, and style, and additional resources. The University of Wisconsin – Madison has a fantastic page sponsored by its Writing Center that gives students advice on proofreading, including preparation that should be done before students begin proofreading and easy tips to follow when proofreading. Virginia Tech offers a page on proofreading that goes over tips, common mistakes, and easy solutions to said mistakes. Back To Top Grammar
Grammar is one of the first things we learn with writing, and it also takes the longest to master. If you've had some trouble with grammar rules or are just looking for some refreshers, check out these great resources. They are sure to help you out on your next writing assignment.
Capital Community College Foundation publishes its own grammar guide that covers word and sentence structure, coherence, tone, formatting, parts of speech, and frequently asked concerns. The Online Grammar Guide provides you with a list of confusing grammatical issues. By clicking on one, it will provide you with a quick summary of the official rule. Schoolhouse Rock – Alright, it may sound silly, but Schoolhouse Rock is actually very helpful. The songs cover a great deal of grammar basics that can help you understand more complex issues. Plus, they're fun. If you want more than simply the lyrics
Tiffany Bracelets, type in "Schoolhouse Rock" to YouTube and you should get a plethora of results. The University of Chicago has probably the best grammar resource guide on the Web. If you truly need some in-depth answers to grammar concerns
Tiffany Ring, this is the place to start. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has a fantastic grammar handbook for its students. It covers the parts of speech, phrases, clauses, sentences and sentence elements, and common usage problems. It is an excellent resource for any student. The University of North Carolina at Pembroke has a great grammar guide that covers comma use, formatting, dangling and misplaced modifiers, subject – verb agreement, and fragments and fused sentences. It offers plenty of examples. The University of Ottawa has a great resource for its students. It covers the parts of speech, punctuation, pronouns, verbs, modifiers, building phrases, clauses, and sentences, spelling, and even diction. Back To Top Punctuation
Punctuation is essential to conveying information with precision and accuracy. You may hate to hear it, but it is something you must learn. In today's world, it's nearly impossible to avoid writing unless you plan on becoming a mountain-living hermit or goat herder. Committing punctuation errors is a quick way to lose respect and authority, especially if you are a native English speaker. However, there's no need to worry because we've put together the ultimate resource for punctuation here: visit the following sites and learn the correct way to use these dots, slashes, and dashes we see so often.
How to Use Punctuation - People have known that punctuation is important ever since it was invented way back in 200 BC. Visit this site to learn how to use all forms of punctuation properly. Punctuation Marks and How to Use Them - This website covers the vast majority of rules concerning punctuation. It provides many examples that will give you confidence when you're faced with a sentence you're not sure how to construct. Punctuation Marks in English Language - This site, ironically called Lousy Writer, will teach you how to become a skilled and decidedly not lousy writer. Browse how to use each individual punctuation mark correctly. Punctuation Puzzles - This page presents common punctuation problems that you might run into while composing a piece of writing for school, for work, or for fun. If you've ever wondered when to use capital letters after a colon or when to use semicolons in a series, this site is for you. Purdue Online Writing Lab - This lab will show you how to use correct punctuation in the places we pause or change the tone of our voices to emphasize certain things during normal speech. Refresh some of the skills that were taught while you were note-writing or daydreaming during English class! Five Common Punctuation Mistakes - This resource, provided by the University of Phoenix, instructs you on how to avoid sabotaging your work by looking careless and unintelligent in your punctuation. Learn things like the correct use of commas with independent clauses and when to use a semicolon vs. a colon. Most Common Punctuation Mistakes - This website invites you to learn and master the most common punctuation mistakes so that you don't have to be a slave to the rules. Are you an expert on punctuating dialogue? If not, visit this site and learn how to become one. Smartlab Software - This website will teach you nifty tricks to help your punctuation like saying things aloud to see whether or not an apostrophe should be applied. Visit this website for more tricks that will professionalize your writing.
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Writing Style Guide: MLA, APA, Chicago, & CSE
In today's academic and professional world, standardized formatting is usually required. Starting as early as high school, students are asked to write papers in MLA, APA, Chicago, and CSE. This is both to avoid plagiarism and establish a standard and easy-to-follow format for teachers, professors, and employers. Unfortunately, the books on these styles are often extensive, dense, and confusing. This article is designed to help students and professionals understand the four major styles.
Here you will find resource pages for each different style, university tutorials
Pandora Charms Store Locator, and free works cited generators. By viewing examples of research papers and using programs that are designed to facilitate your style accuracy, you can be sure that your completed paper is perfect.
Modern Language Association (MLA) Resource Guide
Anne Arundel Community College: Anne Arundel has different section for every type of source you may encounter when writing a bibliography. It gives several examples for each type. Capital Community College: Capital Community College provides sample works cited, grammar and writing tips, paper format examples, plagiarism rules, and even how to write outlines in MLA. Overall, CCC is a very useful guide.
Cornell University Library:The Cornell University Library has an MLA citation style guide, examples of citing sources in the text, a work cited list, and other examples of documentation styles. Duke University Libraries: Provides examples and descriptions on how to cite sources within a paper, as well as a section on assembling a list of works cited. Southwestern College Library: Among a few excellent links to resources, the SWC Library also provides PDF versions of the MLA Citation Guide 6th and 7th Editions. Washington State University: Washington State University provides excellent MLA style guide print resources that are easily downloadable. It also has several good links to other resources.
American Psychological Association (APA) Resource Guide
APA is most commonly used in the social sciences. This includes business and economics, communication studies, criminal justice, education
Cheap Pandora Beads, geography, law, political science, and sociology.
C.W. Post Campus: This site has excellent, clear examples of various correct APA source citations. Very easy to follow. Georgia Southern University: An excellent resource for examples of correct work citations. Seattle Central Community College: This is a great guide that breaks down the anatomy of a citation and then provides general guidelines and tutorials. The Ohio State University: The Ohio State University library gives excellent examples of works cited for books, articles, and electronic resources. The University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign: This is a fantastically organized site for APA tutorials. It clearly breaks up every single type of citation you may encounter. It also has a grammar handbook, ESL resources, and writing tips. Wesmont College:This section of the psychology web site for Wesmont College gives you clear examples of APA style papers using Microsoft Word. The great thing about this site is that it explains how to accomplish each formatting feature on MSWord. Therefore, if you are ever confused about how to insert page numbers are page breaks, this is an excellent resource.
Chicago / Turabian Resource Guide
Chicago is primarily used for history papers. This includes world history, American history, and British history.
Camosun College: Camosun College gives detailed examples of print sources, electronic sources, and quick links. Concordia University Libraries:This site includes a section on parenthetical references and then an extensive list of examples of work citations. The Ohio State University: The Ohio State University library gives excellent examples of works cited for books, articles, and electronic resources. The University of Southern Mississippi Libraries:The USM guide includes a plethora of examples for every conceivable find of source in Chicago formatting.
Council of Science Editors Style (CSE) Resource Guide
CSE is most often used in the sciences. This includes biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering, environmental sciences, geology, mathematics, nursing and health sciences, physics, and astronomy.
The Council of Science Editors: The official web site offers a link to the CSE book
Tiffany Uk, information on events, the council, and editorial policies. It also has a section for members only. Research and Documentation Online:At this site, you choose a discipline (i.e. social sciences), and then select which part of your project you need assistance on (i.e. APA manuscript format). After you have made your selections the site takes you to a clearly laid out page designed to answer any and all concerns you may have with examples and brief descriptions. Dakota State University:Dakota State University has in-text citation examples, as well as end references and examples. The Ohio State University:The Ohio State University library gives excellent examples of works cited for books, articles, and electronic resources. UNC University Libraries: The UNC library web site goes over in-text citations, print sources, online sources, sample bibliographies, and the objectives of CSE.
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Typing
Typing is an essential skill these days. With high schools requiring PowerPoint presentations and businesses using computer-based communication systems, typing with speed and accuracy is a foundational skill for success. If you'd like to get your computer work done faster, and have more time for other projects, learning to touch-type is well worth the effort. The more time your eyes are on the screen instead of the keyboard, and the more time your fingers are on the keys you want instead of searching for them, the more productive you'll be. Keep in mind that taking on any new skill means taking on a steep learning curve; progress will seem slow while you're learning, but the new skills will pay off in the end!
If you're ready to leave your hunt-and-peck days behind, the following websites will help you become a touch-typing pro in no time. They include speed tests to assess your current typing abilities, full tutorials to learn the basics of proper typing posture and finger positioning, and drills to practice letter combinations and punctuation. Best of all, with these creative websites, you'll have fun too!
Typing Warm-up Game: This game is like a brain teaser for your fingers. Letter "flashcards" appear on screen, and you'll have thirty seconds to find as many of the letters on your keyboard. Falling Words Typing Game: Choose your topic, choose your speed. Related words will "fall" down the screen, and disappear when you've typed them correctly. The higher levels include punctuation and capital letters for an extra challenge. Typing Tutorial from Typingweb: This excellent and well-organized website offers a tutorial in all the basics of typing, and will save your progress if you choose to open a free account. There are also speed drills, accuracy tests, and games available. Animated Typing Tutorial for Kids: Just for kids, this tutorial uses excellent animation and audio to capture attention and make the series of lessons exciting. Beginners Typing Tutorial: Offering a complete tutorial for beginning typists
Pandora Charms, this website presents a comprehensive program of typing skills, and related training exercises as well. Basic Tutorial in Fifteen Lessons: These easy to follow tutorials cover the basics of typing in fifteen interactive lessons, beginning with simple letter combinations and progressing to paragraphs. Drills for Technique and Speed: These short exercises are designed to solidify your learning, practicing all the keys with the fingers that are supposed to type them. It's a great resource for developing muscle memory and creating good habits. Letter Typing Practice: This website lets you choose your own typing drill, by deciding which consonant group you'd like to practice, and for how long. You can even change the font color. Typing Tests of Different Lengths: This page offers several speed tests, ranging in length from 57 to 212 words. Some tests are full paragraphs, and others are made of commonly used words. After each test, a report card scores your words and errors per minute.
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Rhetoric, Composition, & Public Speaking
Rhetoric, composition, and public speaking are not subjects that the average student encounters, but historically they were part of the building blocks of education. Two hundred years ago, these subjects were being taught to grade-school students.
These subjects are slowly re-entering schools' curriculum, and if you're one of those students -- or a teacher faced with this lesson plan -- here are some resources to help you uncover the mysteries of being a clear, logical thinker and speaker.
Glossary of Rhetorical Terms with Examples comes from the University of Kentucky's Division of Classics. This is an invaluable resource if you're new to rhetoric terms or are struggling to understand an assignment because of all the new vocabulary you're encountering. Rhetoric is a great introduction and breakdown of this style of discourse from Carson-Newman University. It gives a history of rhetoric, goes over some of the more common terms, and has links to examples. This is another great place to start if you're new to the subject. Aristotle's Rhetoric is the absolute ground-breaking text on discourse and logical discussions. If you want to go straight to the source, this website from Iowa State University has an online version available to anyone, so you can learn in the comfort of your own home. Principles of Composition is the online course breakdown of a writing and composition course from Capital Community College in Hartford, Connecticut. This site is available to the public and divided into three subjects: the writing process, structural considerations, and patterns of composition. Explore ideas like writer's block, grammar, and "the five paragraph essay." Writing/Composition at first glance is a very basic site about "the ABCs of writing." This site comes from Kennesaw State University in Georgia, and it's a great resource for anyone interested in the fundamentals of writing. Follow each link to find out how to arrange an essay, begin the writing process, or even write a resume. Any questions about writing can be answered here. English and Writing is a site from the English department of Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This site has links to the best resources about writing essays, technical papers, and researching, along with information about various writing majors. Even if you don't live in Ann Arbor, you might find a program that interests you through this site. Public Speaking Lesson Plans is obviously tailored for teachers, with detailed handouts and lesson plans, but students will be able to use the site too -- especially if they're looking for resources that will give them extra practice before their big first speech. Speech and Public Speaking is another online course from Kennesaw State University. This site has a list of public speaking resources that are invaluable for teachers and students. Learn everything there is to know about the art of persuasion or find lesson plans for a Speech 101 course. CASAA - Public Speaking is a guideline from the Canadian Association of Student Activity Advisors. It is specifically tailored to help young people become better, more respected public speakers. Students will obviously find this site extremely helpful, and teachers can use it to find out what exactly their students are thinking.
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Evaluating Internet Resources
Don't believe everything you read! Just because something is posted to the Internet doesn't mean that it is necessarily true. Anyone, and we do mean anyone, who knows how to make a website can use it to write whatever they want. This means that something somebody says is a "fact" can be wrong!
When you read any website (even ours), it is your job to evaluate the information and see if it actually checks out! Read on, and we will give you the tools so that you know how to do so.
Factors to Consider When Evaluating Sources
Use the CARS Checklist.
Is the source Credible? You can find out about the credibility of a source by looking to see if the author is educated, or if you're on website written by more than one person, by looking to see if the organization is respected and well known. Is the source Accurate? Find this out by checking if the information is up-to-date and detailed. Is the source Reasonable? Reasonable sources say the same thing throughout the whole page, have arguments that represent both sides, and make sense with the way the world works. If you find a source that says Michael Jackson's body was dropped down from an alien spaceship, it is not reasonable. Finally, is the source Supported? Supported sources list where they got their information or explain how they arrived at their conclusions. (VirtualSalt) Look at the domain, or the ending of the web address. Is it .edu (educational), .gov (government), .com (commercial), or .org (nonprofit)? The domain gives you a clue as to who made the webpage. Websites made by organizations (typically ending in .edu, .gov, and .org) are sometimes more helpful than websites made by individuals. This doesn't mean that you won't find truthful information on websites ending in .com
Tiffany Charms, but it is something to think about. (Teacher Tap) Ask who the website was made for. When people make websites, they want their websites to appeal to a certain type of person. People might make websites for students, for Americans, for comic book readers, etc. If the information on the website is made for academic people, such as older students, researchers, or professors, it is more trustworthy. Academic people probably already know a lot about what they are reading on a website, so if they come across something that is false, they could easily get the maker of the website in deep trouble! (Georgetown University Library) Make sure the website is current and regularly updated. Something that was true when the website was made may not necessarily be true now. For example, something that says the U.S. is 224 years old, may have been true if the website was made in 2000, but not now! (University at Albany) If using a search engine, decide how it gives you the order of results. If you search "dog", the first result you see isn't necessarily the best. Some advertisers buy space on search engines so that their websites can show up first. (John Hopkins University) Look for contact information. If there is no way to get in touch with the organization or the author to verify that the site is credible, such as a mailing address, email address, or phone number, the organization or author may have something to hide. (The University of British Columbia) How does this site compare with other sites on the same topic? When you are writing a paper or doing an assignment, you will almost always be required to use more than one source to back up what you say. If this website says something completely different from other websites on the same topic, then it is probably wrong. (University of Alberta) Look to see if the website is someone's personal page or not. If the URL, or web address, contains what looks like a name followed by a tilde (~), percent sign (%), or the words "users", "members", or "people", then the website is probably personal. Personal websites are more likely to contain peoples' thoughts rather than heavily researched information. (UC Berkeley) Look for grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors. If the website has a lot of these errors, it means that the author didn't proofread it or spend a lot of time on it before posting it to the Web. (University of Alberta) Decide whether or not the website is easy to use. Is the information organized, or is the website cluttered with lots of advertisements? If you see more advertisements than you see writing, the chances are the website is not trying to inform you, but trying to sell you something. (Trash or Treasure?)
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