Online Writing Resource Center
This Online Writing Resource Center was created during the winter quarter of 2009 as Michael O'Laughlin's sabbatical project.
University of Wisconsin at Madison: Writing Resources
This is a comprehensive guide to writing concepts through a link titled "The Writer's Handbook."Main links you'll find here are "Stages of the Writing Process," "Common Types of Writing Assignments," "Grammar and Punctuation," "Improving Your Writing Style," and "Citing References in Your Paper."
Hamilton College Writing Tips
This website offers an indexed list of writing concepts under the following headings: "Guidelines for Writing an Essay," "Guidelines for Writing Other Assignments," "Sources and Citations," "Writing Correctly," and "Revising an Essay."
University of Kansas Writing Guides
This link to the University of Kansas has a list of writing guides that include the following:
- Avoiding Plagiarism
- Critical Thinking, Reading, and Study Strategies
- The Writing Process
- Writing Your Research
- Citing and Documenting Your Sources
- Grammar and Usage
- For ESL Learners
- Writing in Your Courses
Handouts from the University of North Carolina
This link is the main index page for writing resources (handouts) at the University of North Carolina.It is indexed through four main headings: Writing the Paper; Citation, Style, and Sentence Level Concerns; Specific Writing Assignments; and Writing for Specific Fields.
Capital Community College
The Capital Community College website linked here is an enormous site that includes not only the information supplied by most of the other links above, but it also has interactive quizzes and PowerPoint presentations for use by instructors.Students can also access the PowerPoints for their own study.It is organized on the main page with six drop-down menus: "Word and Sentence Level," "Paragraph Level," "Essay and Research Paper Level," "Ask Grammar, Quizzes, Search Devices," "Peripherals and PowerPoints," and "GrammarPoll, Guestbook, Awards."
Writing Handouts from Purdue University
Purdue University has a wealth of information on writing.This link will take you to their Handouts Index.The site is called the OWL at Purdue (for Online Writing Lab).They have a newer link than the one provided here, but the old one is actually easier to navigate.The OWL also has many interactive exercises you can work through.
CONCEPTS IN WRITING
This section of the website contains links listed under specific concepts of writing.The links here are all included in the school links above, but here, they are separated out according to concept.
WRITING PROCESS AND ADVICE
On College Writing--University of North Carolina
This five page handout defines college writing through an analysis of the limitations and drawbacks of the "five-paragraph-theme,"an approach commonly taught prior to college-level work.
On Writing Arguments--University of North Carolina
This five page handout examines the concept of argument as an approach to writing.It defines what an argument is and explains why you need one in most academic writing.It focuses on claims, evidence, counterargument, audience, and critical reading.
On Argument and Persuasion--Purdue University
This eleven-page handout addresses the importance of logic in argumentative writing.It examines the use of logic, offers examples of logical fallacies (slippery slope, hasty generalization, etc.), discusses the role of premises and conclusions in writing, and finally illustrates drawbacks to depending exclusively on logic to make an argument.
On Understanding Assignments--University of North Carolina
This eight-page handout opens with the following overview:"The first step in any successful college writing venture is reading the assignment.While this sounds like a simple task, it can be a tough one.This handout will help you unravel your assignment directions and help you begin to craft an effective response.Much of the following advice will involve translating typical assignment terms and practices into meaningful clues to the type of writing your instructor expects."The handout covers how to begin the process of understanding your assignment, describes formats under which an assignment might fall, includes guidelines for interpreting an assignment, and shares key terms, clues to purpose, issues of audience, evidence usage, and writing style.
On Planning Your Writing--Purdue University
This three-page handout addresses methods of getting started on a writing assignment.
Developing an Outline--Purdue University
This four-page document explains how to produce effective outlines.It defines parallelism, coordination, subordination, and division as approaches to creating outlines.It also offers samples of a variety of outlines.
On Audience--University of North Carolina
This handout will help you understand how to write for the appropriate audience when producing an academic essay.It considers the importance of audience, how audience must be considered as more than just your instructor, to what degree you should explain concepts in your essay, and separates the experience of reading as a writer and reading as a reader.
On Using Evidence--University of North Carolina
This six-page handout provides a broad overview on the gathering and use of evidence.It will help you decide on what counts as evidence, help you put evidence to work in your writing, and determine whether you have enough evidence.It defines what counts as evidence, examines what matters to instructors, defines primary and secondary sources, presents varying approaches to finding sources, gives advice on how to use evidence specifically for an argument, presents methods for incorporating what your sources have to say into your writing, and offers additional resources on this subject.
On Paragraphs and Paragraphing--Purdue University
This seven-page handout defines what a paragraph is, shares elements of a paragraph, considers the importance of development, paragraph breaks, transitions, and balanced structure.
On Paragraph Development--University of North Carolina
This handout examines how paragraphs are formed, gives advice on how to develop stronger paragraphs, and also helps you learn how to completely and clearly express your ideas.It defines the paragraph, gives advice on how to decide what should go into a paragraph, and presents paragraph development as a five-step process.
THESIS STATEMENTS
On Writing Thesis Statements--University of North Carolina
This four-page document defines the thesis statement, offers advice on how to build one, how to determine if your thesis statement is adequate or not, and shares examples.
On Writing Thesis Statements--Purdue University
This brief handout is a tip-sheet on how to produce a thesis statement.It includes examples of analytical, expository, and argumentative thesis statements.
SOURCES: EVALUATING, CITING, AND DOCUMENTING
On Searching the Web--Purdue University
This ten-page document details steps to effectively using the Web for research.It is structured under the following headings: Searching the World Wide Web (Overview); How the Internet and Search Engines Work; Kinds of Search Engines and Directories; Searching with a Search Engine; and Searching with a Web Directory.
On Using Sources--Hamilton College
This document focuses on the use of sources.It discusses citing sources, using quotations, creating paraphrases, how to correctly borrow ideas, defines common knowledge, shares tips on how to integrate your source material, and lists documentation styles.
On Evaluating Sources of Information--Purdue University
This document focuses on how to judge the quality of potential sources.It describes issues of author, credentials, referencing, institution, timeliness, publisher, intended audience.It offers a checklist to keep in mind as you evaluate the validity of your sources.
On Using Quotations--Hamilton College
This handout examines the use of quotations.It explains why we use quotations, how to select the best quotations, and how to integrate them into your paper.It also explains how to format quotations as well as how to use punctuation with quotations.
On Using Quotations--University of North Carolina
This nine-page document not only offers the advice approaches of previous handouts on this subject, but also gives advice on drawbacks to overusing quotations.It focuses on when you should quote, how to set up and follow quotations, shares advice on how much you should quote, and how to combine punctuation marks in quotations with your own punctuation.Within each of these categories of advice, there are subcategories considered.This is an excellent, complete handout on this topic.
On MLA Documentation: Print Sources--Hamilton College
This handout (available also in PDF format) lists how to use Modern Language Association (MLA) documentation for books and articles.It breaks out twenty different categories under books and articles.
On Using MLA Format--Purdue University
This is a 52 page document/handbook to MLA issues.
On Using APA Format--Purdue University
This is a 42 page document/handbook to APA issues.
On Citation (A Full Tutorial)--University of North Carolina
This is a website at the University of North Carolina library that will take you through a multiple paged tutorial on using citations.It includes examples of APA (American Psychological Association), MLA (Modern Language Association), Chicago, and CSE/CBE (Council of Science Editors).
PLAGIARISM
On Avoiding Plagiarism--University of North Carolina
This six-page handout explains the complex issue of plagiarism.It discusses academic concerns with plagiarism, defines common knowledge, and addresses the difficult art of acceptable paraphrasing.It gives advice on how to avoid plagiarism.
On Avoiding Plagiarism--Purdue University
This nine-page document explains the complex issue of plagiarism.It offers an overview of the issue, details safe practices in writing with sources, both at the research level and the drafting level.
REVISING AND EDITING
On Reorganizing Drafts--University of North Carolina
As opposed to revising drafts, this document focuses on a reorganization of your paper.It offers strategies such as reverse outlining, talking about your draft to someone else, listing and narrowing your argument, sectioning, and visualizing the paper.
On Revising Drafts--University of North Carolina
This six-page document exposes the importance of revision in writing.Focusing on a number of strategies to successful revision, it explains how revising is not simply a process of proofreading and editing.It is presented in a question and answer format, anticipating questions the student might have about revision and then fully explaining the concepts.
On Sentence Revision--Hamilton College
This document considers several aspects of sentence revision: wordiness, fragments, passive voice, subject-verb agreement, unclear pronoun reference, dangling or misplaced modifiers, subordination, parallel structure, and select issues of punctuation.
On Strategies for Improving Sentence Clarity--Purdue University
This document addresses the same issues as the one above but additionally focuses on some others, such as going from old to new information in the interests of clarity.It also offers advice on avoiding noun strings and the drawbacks of using the noun form of verbs.
On Editing and Proofreading--University of North Carolina
Editing and proofreading are separate activities in the final drafting process of writing papers.This handout distinguishes between these two processes.It explains that editing is concerned with content, overall structure, structure within paragraphs, clarity, style, and citation.Proofreading focuses on errors such as misspelled words and errors in grammar and punctuation.
On Proofreading--Purdue University
This nine-page handout offers specific advice for how to create an approach to proofreading that will be most effective for your writing.It offers general strategies such as reading aloud, how to spot spelling errors or left-out words.It lists the most common errors to look for: fragments, run-ons, comma splices, subject-verb agreement, mixed construction, parallelism, pronoun reference, and apostrophes.The handout also addresses editing and revision.
On Proofreading for Commas--Purdue University
This handout addresses only proofreading for commas.If your writing suffers especially from errors in comma usage, this handout breaks down the correct usage of commas.
WRITING FOR SPECIFIC FIELDS
CORRECTNESS IN WRITING
Comma Usage--University of North Carolina
This five-page handout explains concepts of comma usage.It focuses on the major conventions of commas as well as identifies common comma errors and why they occur.M
Comma Usage (with exercises)--Purdue University
This handout shares the major conventions of comma usage: commas joining independent clauses, commas with introductory elements, commas with non-essential elements, and commas with coordinate adjectives.It also addresses common misuses of commas.
Commas after Introductions (with exercises)--Purdue University
Research has shown that errors in the usage of commas with introductory elements are the most common punctuation errors in student writing.This brief handout addresses only this particular issue.
Commas with Non-Essential Elements (with exercises)--Purdue University
The non-essential elements convention in comma usage (also called "non-restrictive," "parenthetical," or "extra information") is another concept that often generates errors in student writing.This handout addresses only this particular issue.
Fragments and Run-ons--University of North Carolina
This handout addresses methods of avoiding two major errors in sentence construction: fragments and run-ons.It defines the complete sentence and offers many examples of fragments and run-ons.It also offers a method for finding these errors in your writing.
Sentence Fragments--Purdue University
This handout shares examples of sentence fragments and offers solutions to editing them out of your writing.
EXERCISES IN WRITING
Exercises--Purdue
This is Purdue University's page that lists all their handouts.Click on the link above and then click on "Exercises/Answer Keys" in the first list (or scroll down to the Exercises section).
A Website for Working on Grammar Issues
This is a site for working on grammar issues.It defines terms of grammar and offers exercises, handouts, and PowerPoint presentations.
Daily Grammar
This is a non-academic website (not a university or college) that offers a Lesson Archive on many aspects of grammar and mechanics.
FOR INSTRUCTORS
Creating Effective Writing Assignments--From MIT
This handout, designed for instructors who need to create writing assignments, addresses four areas: Creating Effective Writing Assignments, Checking the Assignment, Sequencing Writing Assignments, and Selecting an Effective Assignment Format.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Diana Hacker's Writer's Reference Site
This is Diana Hacker's Writer's Reference website, an excellent source of guidelines and exercises on research methods.
