Academic Writing Resources Review
For many college students, writing an academic paper such as essay, research paper or thesis is a headache. However, you have to realize that your professors prefer offering a higher mark to an assignment without good thoughts but with good writing skills and grammar to one with contrary situation. Thus, you have to continue to improve your writing skills. Additionally, nowadays writing skill becomes an important advantage for job hunter in the fiercely competitive job market because recruiters find it is more and more difficult to find a MBA with ability to "write a coherent letter or memo".
I have put together a list of valuable resources about essay writing and hope they are helpful to you.
Online Resources:
Comprehensive Guide for Academic Writing:
- Academic Writing Guide by University of Toronto a comprehensive academic writing instruction for students including general writing tips and detailed explanation about writing an successful academic assignment.
- Nuts and Bolts a comprehensive university style writing guide with a book
. It is a "thinking guide rather than a writing guide. As a thinking guide, Nuts and Bolts offers not just a bunch of rules to memorize but a framework for how to analyze essays, from their overall structure down to individual words."
- Online writing lab of Purdue University an online writing handouts giving students all kinds of suggestions from general writing concerns to professional writing skills. It also provides online writing practice.
- Paradigm Grammar and Writinga website with a bunch of writing materials and blogs and forum.
Grammar and Punctuation
- HyperGrammar an online grammar reference written by four instructors of University of Ottawa
- Grammar&Writingit consists of grammar logs and quizzes.
- Grammar and Styles Guide Grammar and Styles, by Dr. Jack Lynch, a succinct tutorial about grammars and styles.
- Grammar,Punctuation and Capitalization a tutorial for technical writers and editors.
Styles of Different Disciplines
- APA (American Psychological Association)Guide (5th Edition) for Languages and Literature
- MLA (Morden Language Association) Guide for Social Science; tutorial onlineMLA handbook for writers and editors
- CMS(Chicago Manual of Style) for Humanities
- CSE(Council of Science Editors) for Science
- AIP(American Institute of Physics) for Science
- Comprehensive Guide for Styles
- Online Reference Shelf of The Pennsylvania State University
- SourceAid Reference
Other Useful Resources
Books
- The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition
a classical compact and lucid guide to better writing. If you don't like a ten-pound reference, this one should be your choice.
- The Pyramid Principle 3rd Edition
an excellent book about business writing.
-
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
a book filled with anecdotes teaches audience punctuation in a fun way.
a classical compact and lucid guide to better writing. If you don't like a ten-pound reference, this one should be your choice.
an excellent book about business writing.
a book filled with anecdotes teaches audience punctuation in a fun way.
Credit: dramainnature.com
To be a good writer, we all need practice, practice and practice.
If other useful online resources and books you would like to share with us, please post in the comment.
Comments
Credit Couses of Academic Writing
Thanks for sharing these useful resources with us. Here is a complement for you: Academic Writing in Credit Courses in Canadian universities.
This is about academic writing courses in Canadian universities and the description of courses. If you seriously want to improve your writing skills, these courses will give your help.
An interview about academic writing
This is an interview discussing what is important in academic writing between Steve kaufmann, a linguist, and his son, a PHD of London School of Economics.
http://www.thelinguist.com/media/av/podcast/2006/07/eric_academi.mp3