Online Resources
Please scroll down for an extensive list of writing & communications resources. Note that certain issues have been categorized to simplify navigation.
***The new WCC Grammar Manual and WCC Blog are now available online!***
SECTIONS & CONTENTS
Online Writing Labs (OWLs)
Writing Handbooks Online
Online Research Resources
Online Style Guides & Style Manuals
Grammar and Style Resources
ESL Resources
Resources for Engineering and Science Papers
Technical Writing Resources
Online Dictionaries & Reference Materials
- The OWL at Purdue University is a very useful website for a wide variety of writing questions, including grammar. This website references almost all the information you'll ever need for generating reference lists (or bibliographies) and for citing information in any format (i.e., Engineering reports, MLA, APA, IEEE, etc).
- The OWL at the City University of New York (CUNY) can benefit non-CUNY students looking to strengthen their writing skills. It presents useful explanations and interactive exercises on various topics: writing projects, writing for exams, writing for work, as well as grammar and style.
- The OWL at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill provides instructional materials that address general writing concerns, sentence level issues, as well as topics pertaining to specific writing assignments and disciples.
- A Writer's Reference is a well-known writing handbook that covers all major writing topics, including grammar and citation: Hacker, Diana. A Writer's Reference. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003.
- This Purdue OWL page can be useful if you're completing an annotated bibliography.
- This Purdue OWL page offers a general overview of the research process and offers links to more specific issues, such as evaluation of sources and primary research concerns (see the bottom of the page).
- Consult this Purdue OWL page if you're working on an abstract for a research paper. You'll find effective PowerPoint slides here.
- See this Purdue OWL page if you're having difficulty paraphrasing and summarizing your sources, as well as integrating quotations into your writing.
- This is an additional handout on paraphrasing.
- This Purdue OWL page will help you to avoid plagiarism.
- Bydewey.com is an excellent resource for citation and research, especially for ESL students. It allows you to translate the page into over 20 languages, and contains resources for how to make presentations, and how to write A+ papers.
Online Style Guides & Style Manuals
- The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Style Manual
- The Chicago Manual of Style
- The ASA Style Guide (Sociology formatting)
- The MLA Style Guide
- The APA Style Guide
- Diana Hacker's book A Writer's Reference includes a guide to MLA, APA, and Chicago styles, as well as information on how to conduct research. Very useful for a variety of disciplines.
- This Long Island University site contains a wealth of information for citing any source in any style (i.e., MLA, APA, IEEE, etc).
- Lehigh University's library webpage offers several resources for creating academic essays and articles for publication, including footnote and citation style guides organized by discipline (i.e., engineering, psychology, economics, etc).
- Here is a link to the well-known and helpful book on style: William Strunk and E.B. White's The Elements of Style.
- This ESL page offers a list of additional grammar topics right under the 'Grammar/Mechanics' heading.
- This CUNY site contains grammar topics, interactive exercises, and an error analyzer. At the end of each handout, you'll find links to other websites with additional information and exercises on the topic.
- In this UNC site, the second column entitled 'Citation, Style, and Sentence Level Concerns' also offers a list of grammar topics with respective exercises and answers.
- Consult this Purdue OWL page for a list of ESL topics and exercises.
- This ESL Cafe site provides grammar lessons, quizzes, and pronunciation lessons, as well as idiom review.
- Online grammar quizzes that light up when you get the question right.
- ESL Blues provides an extensive list of ESL centered activities, including tutorials, quizzes and readings. It is a very useful website, with a banner across the top for easy access to each type of activity.
- The English Language Center Study Zone (from the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada) provides a full list of grammar exercises for studying ESL-related concepts. Very helpful.
- Manythings.org is a wealth of information and activities for ESL students. The website offers quizzes, lists of slang and idiomatic expressions, and spoken MP3 tracks for students to listen to while reading along. Lots and lots of material.
Resources for Engineering and Science Papers
- The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Style Manual.
- This Purdue OWL resource is based on Handbook on Report Formats in Engineering.
- This Purdue OWL webpage offers strategies for writing engineering reports.
- Here is more detailed information at Purdue's OWL website that specifically focuses on technical report writing.
- This site offers an online textbook for technical writing, with a lot of information on the writing process, document design, and the various types of technical documents most common to students and professional in technical fields.
Online Dictionaries & Reference Materials
- Online Oxford English dictionary, which is a good dictionary. This is the compact edition, which doesn't have every word. However, all of the spelling is British, so be aware of this if your professor wants American spelling.
- Webster's online dictionary with American spelling. The pronunciation is also available. You can access this website for thesaurus entries as well.
- http://thesaurus.com/ & http://www.dictionary.com
Both of these sites are useful references for writing any effective document. - Babelfish is a free, online translation tool from Yahoo!. Students can type in a word or phrase and translate it into one of 30 languages. Babelfish also allows for thr option to translate entire webpages into other languages.