Internet Resources

Here are some handy Websites with help for writing your papers, editing final drafts, searching the Web, and evaluating sources.

 

Comprehensive Online Writing Sites

The Capital Guide to Grammar and Writing is made available online by the Capital Community College.  Notice that for matters such as Thesis, Structure and Support, you would choose from the “Essay & Research Paper Level” area.  For most grammatical errors, you would choose from the “Word & Sentence Level” section.  You can also use their Index to find anything you are looking for.  It has at least 350 entries.  Thankfully they are in alphabetical order.  If you can’t find what you are looking for, it is probably because you need to try a different term.

The remarkably comprehensive and helpful General Writing Resources page of Purdue's Online Writing Lab links to instructional handouts on everything a writer may be concerned about from planning and revising essays to handling problems with research papers, punctuation, and sentence construction.  This includes Research and Citation Resources & help for ESL Writers as well as help on Searching the World Wide Web.

University of Wisconsin-Madison Writing Center - This site offers a well-organized, searchable collection of detailed "handouts" on specific types of academic writing.  Part is organized around the stages of the writing process. It includes advice on "Thesis Statements" and on "Quoting and Paraphrasing."

 

Other Helpful Writing Guides

Indiana University at Bloomington/Writing Pamphlets - This helpful site provides information on MLA format for citing sources (including online sources) as well as help with such basic issues as writing thesis statements, paragraphs and topic sentences, and book reviews. See, especially, "Plagiarism: What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It."

Strategies for Essay Writing from The Writing Center at Harvard University provides helpful writing handouts. See especially Developing a Thesis, Overview of the Academic Essay, and Counter-Argument.

 

Research & Documentation Sites

Diana Hacker's Research & Documentation Online site, sponsored by Bedford/St. Martin, is a very accurate and accessible site for all problems with documentation form -- with clear models of both APA & MLA format.

Cornell's Evaluating Research Sources Page - This site from Cornell's Olin Library links to solid, handy advice on how to evaluate the sources you find, both library sources and Internet sources. It helps you differentiate among scholarly and other periodicals.

 

Differentiating Proper Paraphrase from Partial Plagiarism

Wisconsin Madison’s site provides examples that demonstrate the difference between successful paraphrase and illegal plagiarism in "Successful vs. Unsuccessful Paraphrases."

Even more exact is "How to Avoid Plagiarism" – Sue Thompson's description of "Unacceptable Paraphrase" from Cal State San Marcos Library.

GreenBulletDr. Roth Home