Annotated Bibliography of Internet Resources

ESL Resources

The following sites provide instruction and self-testing in areas that are often problematic for second-language speakers of English, including phrasal verbs, idioms, articles, prepositions, and subject-verb agreement: Dave's ESL Cafe; Quizzes for ESL Students; English-Zone. Com; and Grammar Bytes.

English Language Centre Study Zone--Belongs to the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada (hence the English spelling of "center"). Information is catalogued by university class (the lower the number, the more elementary the class). Levels 490 and 570 include "sentence-ordering" exercises that could be useful for students having problems with English syntax. Not as easy to navigate as some sites but worth a look for these unique, challenging exercises.

ESL Resource Center--Described as "the website for learners and teachers of English," this site offers "free ESL lessons" in such topics as writing (revision), grammar, and idioms. Many useful interactive exercises.

Traditional Grammar: an Interactive Handbook--Offers "thousands of interactive exercises" of the multiple choice variety. There is an extensive table of contents beginning with parts of speech and ending with clause structure. One section that might be good for ESL students is the section on verb tense, where the author describes a time relationship and asks the student to pick the correct tense. One caveat: the vocabulary in this site is unabashedly technical and students working alone might have trouble understanding some of the lessons. 

General Language Resources

Guide to Grammar and Writing--Hosted by Capital Community College this site is widely referred to and easily navigated. Information is organized by "levels" (word and sentence, paragraph, and essay). Sub-topics are available via pull-down menus. Each page includes a definition and/or explanation, which is often followed by an interactive quiz. Over 170 quizzes in all. A useful, all-purpose site.

HyperGrammar--An online glossary of grammar terms provided by the University of Ottawa. Good for quick answers to questions when you don't have a copy of Writing from A to Z handy. The rolodex icon in the menu at the top of the page is linked to a list of definitions.

Literacy Education Online--Hosted by St. Cloud State University, this site provides numerous handouts on a variety of writing issues. Many handouts follow a format that allows them to be turned into quizzes. Problematic sentences are analyzed on the left side of the screen, and rewritten versions are provided on the right. The handout on "using concrete details" could be useful for 39A assignments involving narrative. 

North Carolina State University Archive--An archive of answers to grammar questions fielded by NC State's online writing lab. The archive is arranged according to the subject matter of the question. Categories include editing, sentence structure, punctuation, and word choice.

Writing Q and A--Provided by Indiana State University, material is organized in a question and answer format. For example, "what is my teacher talking about when (s)he says I need to work on transitions?" Answer pages contain clear explanations with internal links to necessary definitions.

Rhetorical Resources

A Handbook of Rhetorical Devices--Available from the University of Kentucky Classics Department and written by Robert Harris, professor of English at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, this site provides examples of rhetorical devices from alliteration and anaphora to synecdoche and zeugma. Includes a 25 question test with answers.

Writing an Argument--a good section on argument in a site hosted by Winthrop College.

Online Texts, Reference Works, and Bibliographies

Great Books Online--Online versions of classic reference works including Strunk's Elements of Style, Roget's Thesaurus, and many others. Numerous works of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction from Aeschylus to Yeats are available. Haunted by a phrase whose source you can't quite remember? Try the search engine available for each category. I searched Simpson's Contemporary Quotations for "gluttony" and got the following from John Chancellor, New York, December 1984: "The avenues in my neighborhood are Pride, Covetousness and Lust; the cross streets are Anger, Gluttony, Envy and Sloth. I live over on Sloth, and the style on our street is to avoid the other thoroughfares." Wonder if he knows where Heartbreak Hotel is?

Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts--Hosted by Infomotions, Inc. of Raleigh, North Carolina. Lists 128 authors whose work is available online. Anonymous even has one listing. You can browse by author, title, and date. The concordance feature allows you to search texts for particular words and phrases.

Online Writing Labs

National Writing Centers Association--This site belongs to the National Writing Centers Association, which "was founded in 1983 to foster communication among writing centers." It offers a variety of resources including a hyperlinked list of over 200 college and university "writing centers online." The Virtual Writing Center Tour reviews the services at several of these sites. There are also links to electronic journals, an archive of "tutor stories," and even a "startup kit" for creating your own writing center.

Among OWLs that promise, or have promised, an online response to questions about writing are the Bowling Green State University Writing Lab Online, Dakota State University, North Carolina State University, The University of Missouri Online Writery, and Purdue University. As they become increasingly busy, these sites may limit online responses to students who attend the university where they are located.

The Purdue University OWL--Why click on anything else? Handouts on virtually every subject connected with basic writing.

University of Alabama at Huntsville Writing Center--A nicely indexed and annotated bibliography of resources. Site loads quickly and is easy to navigate. 

Just for Fun

Two sites General Editing Tips and Never-Say-Neverisms that offer humorous checklists. The sentence of advice makes the mistake that it counsels against.