Writing Guides

The 100 Most Commonly Misspelled Words from Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA: "This list was compiled over 50 years ago by National Curriculum Associates from the creative writings of 14,643 children. The submissions were checked for spelling errors by city and by grade levels (3-8). The following represents the 100 most commonly misspelled words, arranged in alphabetical order. It is interesting that a half century later these same words are still causing problems for writers."

Acronym Finder "Look up 122,500 acronyms/abbreviations & their meanings. A searchable database containing common acronyms and abbreviations about all subjects, with a focus on computers, technology, telecommunications, and the military."

An Elementary Grammar from the English Institute. Created for English as a Foreign Language students, this site contains clear explanations of basic grammar issues.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations At a loss for words? Use someone else's (but attribute them, of course!) Search for a word and get all the quotes which contain your word. Also, click on a person's name to see all the quotes attributed to them.

Citation Guides, J. Eugene Smith Library

Citing Your Sources, J. Eugene Smith Library

Common Errors in English Paul Brians, Professor of English, Washington State University. Highly recommended.

Dictionary.com "This highly useful commercial site distinguishes itself from other online reference sources in several ways. First, when users type in a word seeking its definition, the site returns several definitions from different, reputable dictionaries (including, sometimes, foreign language ones), allowing users to compare meanings. Second, the site features a Q/A page where visitors can ask "Dr. Dictionary" questions relating to words and grammar. (Individuals seeking to refresh their memory on the rule of "'I' before 'e' except after 'c,'" or wanting to know the difference between "its" and "it's" will find help here.) Third, and most strikingly, the site features a translation page that will translate anything from a phrase to an entire Webpage from one major European language, including English, to another. There are word games, online foreign dictionaries, and links to writing resources here as well." The Scout Report for Social Sciences. Highly recommended.

Elements of Style The classic by William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White. Electronically published by the Bartelby Project, it includes sections on Elementary Rules of Usage, Elementary Rules of Composition, A Few Matters of Form, Words and Expressions Commonly Misused, and Words Commonly Misspelled.

Eliminating Generic-Male Language: Political Statement or Just Good Writing? from Roane State Community College.

FOLDOC: Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing Enter a word or phrase in the box at the top of any page and click the Search button or hit Enter.

Guide to Grammar and Style, Jack Lynch, Associate Professor, English department, Rutgers University, Newark. Highly recommended.

Guide to Grammar and Writing An award-winning guide from Capital Community-Technical College. Highly recommended.

The Heteronym Homepage "Heteronyms are words that are spelled identically but have different meanings when pronounced differently. For example: Lead, pronounced LEED, means to guide. However, lead, pronounced LED, means a metallic element."

The King's English, 2nd ed. by H. W. Fowler, published through Bartleby.com: Great Books Online. This is the classic grammar text originally published in 1908.

Merriam-Webster OnLine provides a free, searchable online dictionary and thesaurus, word games, a word of the day, and many other English language and vocabulary reference tools and resources.

The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing: "a practical, award-winning online writing guide for college students" from Professor Michael Harvey, Department of Business Management, Washington College. Highly recommended.

OneLook Reverse Dictionary "lets you describe a concept and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept. Your description can be a few words, a sentence, a question, or even just a single word."

Online Help for Common Writing Assignments and Problems from The Rensselaer Writing Center.

Plagiarism: What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It from Writing Tutorial Services, Indiana University, Bloomington. Highly recommended.

Purdue University's Award-winning Online Writing Lab (OWL). Highly recommended.

The Purdue OWL is an award-winning website for writing resources, including over 200 handouts on writing skills and grammar, links to resources for writers, plus resources for teachers, at the university and high school level who include writing assignments in their courses. The OWL website also includes workshops on writing résumés and searching the web, plus links to numerous online sources for students learning English as a second language (ESL). OWL averages about two million hits a year, from users in over one hundred countries.


The 200+ free resources include:

Questions to Ask While Reading Literature from the Nesbitt-Johnston Writing Center, Hamilton College.

The Quotations Page, "one of the oldest quotation sites on the Web, perhaps the oldest. It was first placed online sometime in 1994, as "Michael Moncur's Quotations Page." It has gone through many changes since then, including major redesigns in 1996, 2000, and 2004.

Major features added in the 2000 update include a better quotation search engine, a larger database of book reviews with their own search engine, and a forum for discussion of quotation-related topics. In July 2002, we added the Quotes by Subject section, and we continue to add new subjects. In December 2002 we added biographies for over 1000 of our quoted authors. In 2004 we simplified many of the pages to make navigation easier and added Your Quotations Page, where members can store their favorite quotations."

Revising Prose 18 basic principles of good prose style, with examples, from the RPI Writing Center.

Roget's Thesaurus from the ARTFL Project. If the other one is busy, try this one: takes your search word and finds all the places in the thesaurus where the word occurs.

Some Notes on Gender-Neutral Language from the English Department, University of Pennsylvania.

A Web of Online Dictionaries Quick look up based on Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, plus links to 800 dictionaries in 160 different languages.

Webster's Dictionary (Merriam-Webster Online). "The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary is based on the print version of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, Eleventh Edition. The online dictionary includes the main A-Z listing of the Collegiate Dictionary, as well as the Abbreviations, Foreign Words and Phrases, Biographical Names, and Geographical Names sections of that book. It also includes 1,000 illustrations and 25 tables. Selected sections of the print Collegiate Dictionary, notably the Signs and Symbols section, are omitted from the online Collegiate Dictionary because they include special characters and symbols that cannot readily be reproduced in HTML."

Writing Guides from the Writing Center, Colorado State University. Highly recommended. "Think of our Writing Guides as online textbooks. Each guide is designed to help you find information quickly on a given topic." Includes Writing Processes and Writing Genres:

Writing Tips and Guides by Nesbitt-Johnston Writing Center Tutors and Hamilton College Faculty Members. Highly recommended.

Page created and maintained by Susan Herzog
J. Eugene Smith Library

Last Update: November 18, 2008.