3rd edition open access

Documentation, Plagiarism, Grammar, and Writing Resources
note: these are designed for my English Writing and Literature students but are available to other users: however, I recommend you check with your instructor on style and documentation matters

Documentation-first use your assigned course text  and if you wish use The Simon and Schuster Handbook for Writers the third edition, on the left, which has open access to exercises, diagnostics, and blue pencil-editing exercises.  I recommend you use these.

• Using MLA Formatting-from Purdue, based on the 6th edition

• Citation Generator   A quick and easy way to cite sources correctly-or at least start.  Use your Handbook for help.  Begin by clicking on the left to pick your citation format.

• Online guide to MLA from Cornell University Library

• Printable PDF guides are located for MLA, APA and Turabin and Chicago Styles from the Library of University of California at Berkeley.

• Mark McDayter's site with a sample MLA paper -all 10 pages, and style notes, designed for English students.

• Good all around Diana Hacker, aided by Barbara Fisher, has a first rate and up to date site. The information on this site is also available in a print booklet, Research and Documentation in the Electronic Age, Fourth Edition.  Her organization by disciplines, Humanities, Social Sciences, History and Sciences, is easy to follow; each section gives advice on finding source material, samples and instructions on documenting those sources, and sample papers.

• especially for Anthropology American Anthropological Association 14 page pdf guide or Citations and Bibliographic Style for Anthropology Papers

• especially for Psychology APA Style.org for Psychology or Online! Guide to APA Style
   

What is Plagiarism?

• Vaughan Memorial Library:  Acadia University-a humourous, interactive tour done as an animation.

• Understanding Plagiarism (University of Guelph) with clear examples such as Types of Plagiarism, a quiz to Test Your Understanding of Plagiarism, advice on avoiding plagiarism by careful notetaking, advice on paraphrasing and summarizing with an exercise, and more.i

• Plagiarism:  Biology Department at UBC has many examples of plagiarism ranging from complete plagiarism to patchwork or cut and paste.  It includes advice on academic integrity.

• University of Alberta Libraries Guide to Plagiarism and Cyber-Plagiarism

• Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism:  Simon Fraser University Plagiarism Tutorial has a good self test, and goes from there.

• How Not To Plagiarize (University of Toronto)

• Plagiarism Resource Centre: For Students  (University of British Columbia)

• Plagiarism:  You Can Avoid It-Interactive Tutorials for Students   from the Wallace Library, Rochester Institute of Technology.

• Plagiarism: A Guide for Rutgers Students  has an interesting "Watch the Movie" link.

• What is Plagiarism from Turnitin.com.  This works well since many of your instructors use Turnitin.com to assess student writing for plagiarism, and some encourage students to submit their papers and review the report from Turnitin.com as a guide to revision.

• Avoiding Plagiarism from Purdue University OWL

• Plagiarism: an interactive  self assessment test from George Brown with  continue on arrows to walk you through many examples

• Plagiarism: What it is and How to Recognize and Avoid It from Indiana State University has a number of exercises you can work through

  • How to Recognize Unacceptable and Acceptable Paraphrases

  • An Unacceptable Paraphrase

  • An Acceptable Paraphrase

  • Another Acceptable Paraphrase

  • Plagiarism and the World Wide Web

  • Strategies for Avoiding Plagiarism

  • Terms You Need to Know (or What is Common Knowledge?

Style Guides

• Fowler, The King’s English:  classic texts on rhetoric and style

• Strunk and White, The Elements of Style  another classic text on rhetoric and style

• How do I integrate a quotations into my draft is a quick tutorial from the Bedford Researcher set of online tutorials

• The Research Essay:  types of, possible structures, and tips

Grammar and Writing Matters

• The best set of Interactive Quizzes on Grammar and Style I have found are at Guide to Grammar and Writing sponsored by the Capital Community College Foundation Hartford Connecticut.

• The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation has solid explanations and examples accompanied by numerous quizzes.  Choose the click at the prompt on the top right "Would you like to do this quiz in the interactive, multiple-choice format? Click here " for immediate feedback.

• Grammar Bytes has an annoying initial screen with a chomping cartoon dinosaur, but is quick and easy to use for information, rules, quizzes.

• Common Errors in English from Paul Brians at Washington State University.

• 11 Rules of Writing, Grammar and Punctuation give tips on the 11 most common issues students face in academic writing.

•   Common Errors in English, by Paul Brians, has a helpful, alphabetical list of errors.

• Parse a sentence for fun and help.  This site will analyze the sentence you type in.  Follow the instructions carefully. This is part of Link Grammar, a site created by Davy Temperley,  Daniel Sleator, and John Lafferty at Carnegie Mellon University, school of computer science; the site includes a translator (English German), and links to why your sentence might not parse.

• Punctuation Made Simple by Gary Olsen at the University of Illinois featuring the colon, semicolon, comma, dash, and apostrophe.

• Clear English  is a meta site that organizes links to online exercises and writing topics. It has parts of speech, sentence grammar, and English as an Additional Language exercises.

•  List of Exercises from the Internet Grammar of English, developed to support an online course on grammar from any UK educational institution. The exercises are fast, give immediate feedback and require little typing.  One of the best reviews I have found.

• An Overview of English Article Usage for Speakers of English as a Second Language by John R. Kohl Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has a lucid explanation of articles followed by a quiz with answers and explanations. The Purdue University section on  Articles is followed by two excellent quizzes.

• Grammar Gorillas is a set of games for young students, but is fun and helps you learn the parts of a sentence.

• Free English Grammar Lessons from ABC Checkers has excellent, easy to use grammar lessons and e-mail information.   Be aware that some services offered on this site cost money.  All those listed on its home page (link is at the bottom of grammar lessons) under Free Information are, indeed, free.

• Online English Grammar  from edufind.com has all kinds of free Games, tests, exercises, and even an assessment test.

• Grammar Handbook from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is organized by subject.  

•  The Hypergrammar from  the University of Ottawa  is easy to use, clear, and detailed.

• Writing Guidelines for Engineering and Science Students by Michael Alley, Leslie Crowley, Jeff Donnell, and Christene Moore covers presentations, correspondence, formal reports of varying sorts, and is updated often. For the obsessive, the complete 2005 IEEE Standards Style Manual (PDF version) is posted by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

• Legal Writing Center from Quinnipac University School of Law, including help on reading cases and writing in formats for a program in the faculty of law.

• Daily Grammar: explanations and exercises, 440 sets and rising.

• Purdue University's Online Writing Lab has a comprehensive site  with over 130 handouts available on grammar, audience, style, punctuation, incorporating quotations and so on.  It is easy to use, searchable, and updated regularly. It has a specific section for ESL and native speakers on grammar and punctuation that is worth reviewing if you have sentence problems.

• Jack Lynch's Grammar and Style Notes is complete, easy to use, and has varying levels of difficulty in self-tests that you can use for review.

Dictionaries, Encyclopaedia, and Writing References

• Longman Dictionaries Homepage links to a dictionary and many word games, study exercises and so on. This site provides interactive drills that will help you improve both vocabulary and grammar.

• Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online

• One Look Dictionaries with 503 Dictionaries in one database lets you do a meta search or browse individual dictionaries.

• A Web of On-line Dictionaries is a site that lists about 500 dictionaries in 140 languages.  It may help you work with some of the problems of translation and grammar.

• Net Dictionary Online

• Netlingo

• Robert Harris' Evaluating Research Sources  is a helpful guide for evaluating support.

• Wordsmyth English Dictionary - Thesaurus

• Encarta  On-line  encyclopedia is a fast, useful search for general information and has links to Dictionary, Thesaurus, a world Atlas and other bits.

• Bibliomania, a commercial site, has e-texts of classics with asorted study guides (not especially useful),and, under research, choose reference to find Brewer's Phrase and Fable, and  Roget's Thesaurus among others.

• Grammar, Capitalization, and Punctuation: A Handbook for Technical Writers and Editors by Mary K. McCaskill is online.

• Daniel W. Mosser's text The Evolution of Present-Day English is fun to read, and makes sense of what appears senseless.

• Paradigm:  The Online Writing Assistant has many good tools and encourages online blogging.  It is worth looking at if you enjoy high degrees of interactivity. Focus on the sentence has great sections including Basic Sentence Concepts, Expanding the Basic Pattern, Six Problem Areas, Designing Effective Sentences. Basic Punctuation is also useful.  The site uses primarily American examples.

ESL interactive Learning Resources

• The Learning Resources Site offers web-delivered instruction using current and past CNN San Francisco bureau news stories. The Western/Pacific Literacy Network and the CNN San Francisco bureau have partnered to develop an online literacy site that will allow you to develop reading comprehension, listening skills, and higher order sequencing using current news stories. It provides a new story every week and is an excellent site for providing new material weekly.    If your computer supports video and sound, you can see and hear the actual news clip from CNN.  Choose "Story of the Week"  or select one topic from the "Story Archives" on the left side of  your screen. Once you load the story of your choice, Look on the main section of the screen and click on "Story" rather than "Abridged Story" or "Story Outline."   Both the original site and Beta site are useful.

• Purdue University's site for ESL with links  to tutorials, grammar handouts, idioms, phrasal verbs, on-line grammar courses, and academic conventions. Most of these sites have interactive work after you read the section.

• Studycom's on-line English Courses (all free).   When you access this site, click on the word Students on the left column menu.   You will then see a range of activities including a menu of courses and access to chat lines that you may wish to play around with.

• Business English Hangman a site to while away the hours, for those with fond memories of hangman.

• Edgamesandart.com has many games to help you learn English, and even better, Science hangman.

• The George Washington University Study Hall has categories such as reading, writing, listening, grammar, vocabulary, and discussion.

• Ruth Vilmi's exercises developed for the internet TESL journal site..

• Business English  is like the next two a commercial site, with free exercises, idiomatic expressions, and a focus on business.

• ESL Cafe  from Dave Sperling

• Activities for ESL Students  part of the on-line TESL Journal series of  about 900 interactive quizzes, predominantly U.S. based, that provide instruction, drill, and correction / review. All are easy to use and embedded in contextual practices

• Karin's ESL Partyland from Karin Citron

• Activities for ESL/EFL Students  from simple to more advanced, across the grades and between various languages, similar to BBC World Service - Learning English Home Page, English Banana.com:es, The EFL Playhouse--A Resource for Teachers of Young Learners,  Various K-12 links, Genki English

"Wicked people never have time for reading. It's one of the reasons for their wickedness."     - Lemony Snicket