 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
 |
|||
 |
 |
||
 |
(from Wienbroer, Hughes, & Silverman. Rules of Thumb for Business Writers, 2nd ed. New York : McGraw-Hill, 2005, pp. 204-215.) Help With:
Last update: 12/12/07 Every day, more resources are available online. Your local library may offer software and passwords so you can access major databases free from your home or office; your business organization may provide additional access. But even when a fee is required at a particular site, often it applies only to the ordering of a specific document. You may be able to get what you need by logging on and checking the free pages. Your writing needs may require you to visit a library, subscribe regularly to professional journals, and/or buy key reference books, CDs and DVDs. Check this list for some suggestions. The following list does not separate resources according to format because the publication of material is gradually changing from print to digital. There is an advantage to each version; you may prefer to download and print information, work with it, and then return to the computer. Note: We have given complete URLs for web addresses. To get a short version of a long address, enter it at http://www.snipurl.com/
HELP WITH CREATIVITY AND WRITER'S BLOCK Hughes, Elaine Farris. Writing from the Inner Self. New York : HarperCollins, 1991. Offers techniques and advice to free your creative, real self. This book is particularly helpful if you have to produce fresh, innovative material regularly. Schneider, Pat. Writing Alone and with Others. New York : Oxford Univ. Press, 2003. Excellent advice for journal-keeping and for gaining confidence as a writer. Schneider also offers guidance for writing groups. Ueland, Brenda. If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit. 2 nd ed. Saint Paul , MN : Graywolf, 1987. Shows how to come up with ideas, find your unique voice, and write honestly. A classic since the first edition (1938), this book encourages writing for its value to the writer-not merely as a job.
HELP WITH STYLE , GRAMMAR , AND USAGE Booher, Dianna. Good Grief, Good Grammar: A Business Person's Guide to Grammar and Usage. New York : Fawcett, 1990. An easy-to-use, detailed guide to grammatical terms and their applications-for example, when to use since rather than because. Burchfield, R.W., ed. The New Fowler's English Usage. 3 rd ed. New York : Oxford , 2000. A thorough coverage on word usage. Jack Lynch's page-Grammar and Style Notes http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/ Thorough advice on writing, recently updated. Note that this address is case sensitive. Punctuation Made Simple http://www.stpt.usf.edu/pms/ Strunk, William Jr., and E. B. White. The Elements of Style. 3 rd ed. New York , Macmillan, 1979. The classic-designed to help you write more elegantly. However, it assumes that you understand grammatical terms. The e-text is available at http://www.bartleby.com/141/
HELP WITH DESIGNING ELECTRONIC DOCUMENTS
Web Style Guide, 2nd ed. http://www.webstyleguide.com/ Norman, Donald A. The Design of Everyday Things. New York : Basic Books, 2002. Tufte, Edward . The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint. Cheshire , CT : Graphics, 2003. ___. Envisioning Information. Cheshire , CT : Graphics, 1990. http://www.edwardtufte.com/ Usability. U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Resource page with guidelines and links to books and articles on designhttp://usability.gov/ Virtual Library's Information Quality Page http://www.ciolek.com/ WWW VL-InfoQuality.html Web Developer's Virtual Library http://www.wdvl.com/ Williams, Robin, and John Tollett. The Non-Designer's Web Book. Berkeley , CA : Peachpit, 2004. WWWConsortium (W3C). http://www.w3.org/
HELP WITH DETAILS FOR PUBLISHING AND DOCUMENTING RESEARCH American Psychological Association. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. This manual describes the format used by publications in the natural and social sciences. http://www.apastyle.org The Chicago Manual of Style. 15 th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.The most comprehensive and definitive of the style books for publishing. Use these guidelines if you are not committed to the requirements of a particular discipline. to http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html Council of Biology Editors. Scientific Style and Format: The CBE Manual for Authors, Editors and Publishers. 6th ed. Washington, DC: American Institute of Biological Sciences, 1994. The seventh edition is in preparation. Meanwhile, updates can be found at
http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/cite8.html Dodd, Janet S. The ACS Style Guide: A Manual for Authors and Editors. 2 nd ed. New York: Oxford Univ. P, 1997. Also see the American Chemical Society's website at http://www.acs.org/ Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. 2 nd ed. New York: Modern Language Association, 1998. A guide for all the fine points for publications in foreign languages and in English literature. http://www.mla.org/style_faq/
HELP WITH ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE Allen, Edward Jay. Advanced American Idioms. Language Development Series, 1982. Ammer, Christine. American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. Boston: Houghton, 2003. A good and full explanation of the meaning of phrases and when to use which preposition in a phrase. Education Resources on the Internet http://www.edufind.com/english/grammar/toc.cfm/ Spears, Richard A. ed. NTC's American Idiom Dictionary. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000.
American Heritage Dictionary. Contains excellent photographs and illustrations. Foreign Word: Online Dictionaries and Free Translation Tools http://www.foreignword.com/ Free Translation http://www.freetranslation.com/ Google Translations http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 11 th ed. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 2003. Merriam-Webster Dictionary http://www.m-w.com/ Oxford English Dictionary (OED). 13 vols. Gives the full historical development of English words. See also Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 10 th ed. Roget's International Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, 5th ed. New York : Addison Wesley, 1994. Also at http://www.bartleby.com/62/ Thesaurus from Reference.com http://thesaurus.reference.com/ Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language. 3rd ed. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2003. The dictionary most often cited. To access the dictionary or thesaurus in your word processing program, first highlight the word and then click your right mouse button.
In addition to the sources listed here, look for encyclopedias devoted to a particular subject--for example, there is a Baseball Encyclopedia (Palmer & Gillette, eds. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2004). Collier's Encyclopedia. Good general information source for contemporary subjects. Encyclopedia Americana . Good for scientific and technical topics. Encyclopedia Britannica (in print, on CD, or online for a fee) . The most definitive, comprehensive encyclopedia. Annual supplement, Britannica Book of the Year. Also at http://www.britannica.com/ Free Internet Encyclopedia http://www.cam-info.net/enc.html/
Most of the statistical sources listed here are also available in print under the same titles, in the reference sections of libraries. American Statistical Index http://www.fedstats.gov/ Bureau of Census Reports http://www.census.gov/ Bureau of Labor Statistics http://stats.bls.gov/ National Center for Health Statistics http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/ Statistical Resources on the Web http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/statsnew/ World Fact Book http://www.bartleby.com/151/ http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html See also the Web sites of individual federal agencies.
QUOTATIONS ORGANIZED BY SUBJECT Bartlett 's Familiar Quotations. 17 th ed. Boston : Little, Brown, 2003. Also available on software or at http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/bartlett/ Metcalf, Fred. The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotations. New York: Penguin, 2002 Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. New York: Oxford , 1999. See various editions on humorous quotations, modern quotations, etc The Quotations Page http://www.quotationspage.com/ Quote World http://www.quoteworld.org/
Most library home pages offer access to a choice of databases. Subscribers often can access these from home as well, although some databases may be available only at designated terminals in the library. Librarians can advise you about reference guides and specialized databases for your particular subject. The reference pages here list resources available on the Web, and many also give research tips. Business Connections from the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/reference/busconn.html Business Reference Services, Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/rr/business/ Environment http://www.envirolink.org http://www.earthwatch.org/ Federal Information Network http://www.fedworld.gov Government Science Portal (links to government- sponsored sites) http://www.science.gov/ Internet Public Library http://www.ipl.org/ itools http://www.itools.com/ Librarians' Index to the Internet http://lii.org/ Library of Congress Research Tools http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/tools.htm RefDesk (Virtual Reference Desk) http://www.refdesk.com/ Resource Shelf for News Information Professionals http://resourceshelf.freepint.com Scicentral Links to Worldwide Sources for Science News http://www.scicentral.com/ US Congress on the Internet (Congressional decisions) http://thomas.loc.gov/ Writers' Free Reference Page http://www.writers-free-reference.com/
Be sure to use several different search engines--or use a metasearcher, which connects to a number of search engines simultaneously. However, the most efficient searches on the Web rarely find chapters in books or articles in journals. For those, you will need the databases your library provides. About.com (each area is maintained by an expert to whom you can e-mail) http://www.about.com/ AltaVista (one of the most comprehensive, allows for sophisticated advanced searches) http://altavista.com/ Dogpile (fun to use, simultaneously searches several search engines, including Google) http://www.dogpile.com/ Google (huge database, retrieves at a high relevance) http://www.google.com/ Highway 61 (simultaneously searches the twelve most popular search engines, arranging results by relevance) http://www.highway61.com/ Hotbot (allows for specifying words that appear only in the title, body, or links; can search in 35 languages) http://www.hotbot.com/ isleuth Web Directory and Search Engine (includes phone directories) http://www.isleuth.com/ List of additional metasearchers and their descriptions http://www.wrx.zen.co.uk/meta2.htm Search.com (fast and thorough metasearcher) http://www.search.com/search.html WebCrawler (one of the fastest metasearchers) http://webcrawler.com/ Yahoo (very fast search http://www.yahoo.com/ of a huge database)
The following services provide free access to entire books originally in print. You can use a search engine to find other sites that offer more recent books online--for a fee. Bartleby: Great Books Online http://www.bartleby.com/ Bible Online http://www.biblegateway.com/ The Complete Works of William Shakespeare EServer http://eserver.org/books/ Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.net/ Online Books Page at the University of Pennsylvania http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/
Most news organizations and publications maintain a website with at least some material from their current issues or programs. Sources listed here allow free searches through their archives, although there may be a fee for the article itself. Christian Science Monitor (complete issues since 1980) http://www.csmonitor.com/ National Public Radio http://www.npr.org/ Newslink (links to magazines http://newslink.org/ and newspapers) Newspapers.com http://www.newspapers.com/ Los Angeles Times http://www.latimes.com New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/ Public Broadcasting System http://www.pbs.org/ Salon (e-magazine) http://www.salon.com/ Slate (e-magazine) http://www.slate.com/ Total News (search engine for news posted on the Web) http://www.totalnews.com/ Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/ Wired (e-magazine) http://www.wired.com/
This list includes a number of sources for off-beat information--to help you to think about problems in different ways, or to spark up a talk, or to add interesting filler to a newsletter. Adams, Cecil. Triumph of the Straight Dope . New York Random House, 1999. The latest book in a series from Adams 's newspaper column "The Straight Dope," answering odd questions, such as "How many square inches of skin are on the average human body?" Searchable database at http://www.straightdope.com/ Ash, Russell. The Book of 1001 Lists. New York: Barnes and Noble, 2003. Bragonia, Reginald, Jr., and David Fisher. What's What: A Visual Glossary. New York : Smithmark, 1994. Illustrates and names the parts of common objects. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 15 th ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1995. Burnam, Tom. The Dictionary of Misinformation: The Book to Set the Record Straight. New York : HarperCollins, 1986. Ciardi, John. A Browser's Dictionary: A Compendium of Curious Expressions and Intriguing Facts. 2nd ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1983. DeGregorio, William H., and Connie Jo Dickerson. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. New York: Random, 1997 Fadiman, Clifton , ed. Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes. New York : Little, Brown, 2000. Feldman, David. Life's Imponderables: The Solution to the Mysteries of Everyday Life. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2003. Latest in a series, organized by questions and answers, but with indexes. See also Do Penguins Have Knees? How Does Aspirin Find a Headache? How Do Astronauts Scratch an Itch? and so forth. Folkard, Claire, ed. The Guinness Book of World Records. New York: Bantam, 2004. (updated each year). Also look for Guinness books on records in Aircraft, Olympics, and Sports. Grun, Bernard . Timetables of History . 3 rd ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. A horizontal depiction, in timeline style, of simultaneous historical, political, and cultural events. Horowitz, Maryanne Cline. The New Dictionary of the History of Ideas. New York: Scribner's, 2004. Jones, Judy, and William Wilson. An Incomplete Education. New York: Ballantine, 1995. Provides a variety of information not easily found, such as explanations for the job titles in film production credits. Kane, Joseph Nathan, Steven Anzouin, and Janet Podell. Famous First Facts: A Record of First Happenings, Discoveries, and Inventions in American History . New York: Wilson , 1997 Lapham, Lewis, Michael Pollan, and Eric Etheridge. Harper's Index Book. New York : Holt, 1987. Provides statistics with social and political implications- such as the number of millionaires on different presidents' cabinets, with references. See also individual issues of Harper's magazine since 1986, and the current month at http://www.harpers.org Mills, Jerry Leath, and Louis D. Rubin, eds. A Writer's Companion: A Handy Compendium of Useful but Hard-to-Find Information on History, Literature, Art, Science, Travel, Philosophy, and Much More . New York: HarperCollins, 1997. Panati, Charles. Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things. New York: Harper, 1989. Inventions of common objects. Wallechinsky, David, and Amy Wallace. The Book of Lists. New York : Warner, 1995. (See other books of lists in this series.)
RESOURCES FOR EVALUATING INFORMATION about.com "urban legends" http://urbanlegends.about.com/ email- reality checks http://www.truthorfiction.com/ Evaluating Chain letters http://www.purportal.com/ Evaluating Web Sites: Criteria And Tools http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/research/webeval.html Evaluation of Information sources-includes links to informative articles http://www.vuw.ac.nz/staff/alastair_smith/evaln/evaln.htm FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) http://www.fair.org/ Fact Check ( Annenberg School of Journalism at Univ. of Penn ) http://www.factcheck.org/ List of Internet Hoaxes http://hoaxbusters.org/ Rob Rosenberger's virus myths http://www.vmyths.com/ Symantec hoax page http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html Symantec Virus list http://www.sarc.com/avcenter/vinfodb.html Urban Legends http://www.snopes.com/ Virtual Chase http://www.virtualchase.com/quality/
|
 |
|
