Links to Resources for Writing

Rhetoric, Style, and Mechanics

• The Elements of Style: The first edition (1918) of William Strunk's classic guide to good writing. (Bartleby)
• Guide to Grammar and Style: Jack Lynch's extensive handbook on grammatical and stylistic considerations. Arranged alphabetically. Not always easy to use, but covers a lot of ground. (Rutgers U.)

Other Writing Resource Sites

• Indispensable Writing Resources: An extensive collection of links to writing-related websites. Includes online writing labs and grammar help, as well as subject-specific resources for journalism, writing about literature, scientific/technical writing, etc. Heavy on advertising, pop-ups etc., but useful.
• IWCA Links to Writing Center Handouts: A huge indexed collection of links to handouts on every aspect of the writing process. A superb collection, but a little unwieldy to use for casual reference. (Part of the International Writing Centers Association web site.)
• Texas A&M U. Writing Handouts:  A large selection of handouts on all aspects of writing.  Includes a section on Technical Writing (business writing).
• Purdue University Online Writing Lab Handouts:  Extensive and well-organized set of handouts on all aspects of the writing process.
• Iowa State U.'s OWL: Handouts A very extensive group of handouts collected from across the web and covering all aspects of the writing process. Virtually an on-line writing textbook. Also, see their "Q&A" section for a quick look at commonly asked questions.
• Paradigm Online Writing Assistant: An impressively designed hypertext guide to the writing process. Especially good on style and sentence combining. Grammatical help is useful but does not try to be exhaustive. Includes an e-mail discussion list, a chat room, and a question-and-answer area. 
• The UVic Writer's Guide: A comprehensive online textbook, including a good treatment of style, as well as sections on grammar, organization, etc. (U. of Victoria)

General Reference Resources

• Martindale's Reference Desk: An eclectic and very extensive collection of links to information on the Internet--everything from medicine to local weather to the CIA's statistics on Montenegro.
• Virtual Reference Desk: A clearinghouse for access to all sorts of information--from government statistics to reference books to how to buy a house.

Dictionaries, Encyclopaedias, etc.

• EServer Reference Works:  a useful collection of links to a variety of online reference works.  (U. of Washington)
• Merriam-Webster: The on-line version of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, as well as other materials from Merriam-Webster.
• OneLook Dictionaries: A limited area search engine (LASE) which enables you to look up words in over a hundred on-line dictionaries at once. Includes technical and professional dictionaries as well as general ones.
• Encyclopedia.com: A free online encyclopedia. Very short articles, but useful for quick reference. (Electric Library)
• ARTFL Project: Roget's Thesaurus Search Form: A guide to finding synonyms and antonyms, or for identifying that word that's on the tip of your tongue.
• Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1901 edition): An earlier edition of the standard reference work for locating and identifying common quotations.
• WWW Virtual Library:  Not exactly a reference work, but a useful place to start looking for material in a wide variety of subject areas.