QUICK RESOURCE SHEET #12
Online writing guides
It used to be that the only comprehensive
guides to writing were costly and heavy to tote around. Now, any information
you seek on the process of writing, from how to organize ideas to proper
paragraphing and beyond to questions of grammar and syntax, is available for
free and in great detail online. Here are a few resources to get you started.
Far and away the best available set,
on the web, of hyperlinked references on all aspects of writing.
This site contains over 300 virtual handouts on all aspects of writing,
including essay writing and different types of essays, paragraph and sentence
structure, word usage, documentation conventions, literary terms, writing
summaries, logic, punctuation, and grammar. The site has a useful table of
contents and index, both hyperlinked, and the index topics can be searched
alphabetically.
http://www.rpi.edu/dept/llc/writecenter/web/handouts.html
This is a style and punctuation guide. It is well
written, extensive, with plenty of examples. The guide has two parts; the first
is a "Prose Style Section" that explains twelve principles of good
prose style. The second part of the guide covers "Basic Punctuation and
Mechanics" and discusses fifty of the most common problems with
punctuation and mechanics. Most of these rules are illustrated with
examples.
http://www.bgsu.edu/offices/acen/writerslab/
A collection of about 30 self-help documents focusing
primarily on grammatical problems common in ESL writing, e.g.: "Sequence
of Verb Tenses," "Forming Plural Nouns," "Comparative
Adjectives" and "Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement."
http://www.eduref.org/cgi-bin/lessons.cgi/Language_Arts/Writing
This site is not, strictly speaking, a comprehensive
guide to writing or the teaching of writing. However, it has links to lesson
plans for primary and secondary school teachers of writing, each one marked for
suitable grade level.