Reference Materials

    Use the links here to access tools to assist you with your coursework. It contains study aids, style guides, and other such material. Eventually, this site will have more of my own material to help you develop your academic skills, but as for now, most of the links point to outside sites. I have tried to find multiple sites offering the same information, because not all sites are right for everyone. Explore each one and figure out which resource is best for you.

 

 

General Reference Books:

A dictionary and a thesaurus are probably the most important tools a student could use. Use a dictionary to look up words you don't understand (philosophy texts are full of them) and use the thesaurus to find the perfect word to express yourself in your papers. Bartleby has loads of reference books, online encyclopedias, books of quotations, and more.
 

 hdthes.gif (6244 bytes) hddict.gif (6364 bytes)

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Style Books and Writing Guides

Confused as to whether to use 'its' or 'it's'? Forget how to write a footnote? What does it mean to "split an infinitive"? These three sites will help you with most of your English usage needs. Elements of Style is the classic text on writing well, MLA is the official Modern Language Association site for citations and other technical questions, and Jack Lynch's guide is a very popular internet site that makes technical information easy to access.

The Elements of Style
Basic advice on grammar and style usage.
 

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Format bibliographies and footnotes according to the MLA stylebook. 

Jack Lynch'squestionbook.gif (1903 bytes) "Guide to Grammar and Style"

 

Darmouth College's list of
 20 most common grammar errors



General Study Skills

These sites offer numerous suggestions on taking notes, preparing for exams, and developing oral presentations. It even has suggestions on how to influence your professor. The GNU pages and the OWL handouts are probably the most diverse.

owl.jpg (18800 bytes)
Purdue University OWL Handouts: This site lists over 130 handouts. Handouts include such topics as: Parts of speech. Punctuation, English as a second language. Check this out, it's a must see!

 

     GNU.jpg (12739 bytes)GNU
Student Help Pages

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Study Guides and Strategies

    notes.gif (3069 bytes)TAKING NOTES ON LECTURES

 

 

 

Research Paper Help

Having trouble starting your papers? Can't find a suitable idea? Have the idea but don't know how to find the research? These sites offer step by step guides to help.

A Guide for Writing Research Papers featherbook.gif (20400 bytes)based on Modern Language Association
(MLA) Documentation  Prepared by the Humanities Department and the Arthur C. Banks, Jr., Library Capital Community-Technical College in Hartford Connecticut.

 

Have any more suggestions for student resource links? Have a favorite help site that I haven't included?  Please let me know.

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