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Links for Good Writing

Articles	Grammar & Punctuation	Style	UN Resources
Tips & Samples	Parallelism	Unity & Coherence	Vocabulary Resources

Articles about Good Writing

• Want Your Letter to Stand Out? Here's a Tip: Write It Yourself
  An interesting May 22, 2005 article from the New York Times by David Koeppel.
• When Ideas Get Lost in Bad Writing
  February 27, 1999 article by Dinitia Smith
• Plain English Campaign 2003
  This article - one of many ones on the British website 'World Wise Words' - discusses how one man's gobbledegook is another's plain speaking.
• Can one avoid sexist writing?
  This article is one of many intriquing articles on 'World Wide Words' a website dedicated to investigating questions of language.
• The Elements of Style
  First written in 1918, this book - now available for FREE on bartleby.com - is a classic reference on English writing style that many English teachers and editors still use today.

Articles about Tone & Positive Language

• Lessons in Lifemanship
  Although many of the chapters in this online book are quite interesting and useful, for this course chapters 22-27 are the more relevant.
• Using Positive Language
  Some good adice on tone from PerformanceAppraisals.org

General Tips & Sample letters

• Gallaudet University Writing Center: Letters
  This university in Washington D.C. provides a writing website called 'English Works!'. This page focuses on letters and provides great examples such as types of letter formats and sample letters.

Grammar & Punctuation

• Verb Tense Tutorial
  Try this page on the 'EnglishPage' website for an excellent review of all English verb tenses, with both lessons and practice quizzes.
• Guide to Grammar & Writing
• Online Writing Lab
  An excellent resource from Purdue University. Scroll down on this 'site map' to see the many varied topics available for study and practice.
• Blue Book of Grammar & Punctuation
  An excellent resource with lessons, practice, and tests.
• Which vs. That - when to use each in subordinate clauses
  From the British website 'World Wise Words', this article provides a nice explanation of the difference between 'which' and 'that'.

Parallelism - Explanations & Quizzes

• Guide to Grammar & Writing
  This page from the Capital Community College's Guide to Grammar & Writing, provides a great explanation followed by two excellent electronic quizzes for practice.

Style: Being more concise

• Concise Writing - a lesson and exercises
  From Victoria University in Australia, this webpage provides a nice lesson with many excellent exercises.
• How to make sentences clear and concise
  A short, simple list of tips from 'Writer's Web'.
• Nine Steps to Longer Sentences
  As a joke, this website teaches you how to do what you should NOT do.
• Writing Concise Sentences (Online Writing Lab)
  A lesson on how to write more concisely is followed by three quizzes for practice.
• Misplaced modifiers [ Edit | Delete ] [Posted By: jnooyen]
  This article - one of many intriguing ones on 'World Wise Words' discusses sloppy writing that evokes odd images.

Unity & Coherence

• Combining Sentences
  A lesson followed by three excellent quizzes for practicing sentence length & variety.
• Connectors in Context
  A great practice exercise, which was created by instructor Julie Sevastopoulos in the ESL Department at the College of San Mateo. For more exercises to try, click on 'Grammar Check' (at the bottom of the page) to see links to a vast number of quizzes. The quizzes under the category 'connectors' are especially good.
• Sentence Variety - from Online Writing Lab
  This page provides a concise lesson on the common types of sentences in English.

UN Resources

• UN Spelling List 2005
  The United Nations standard is based on the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, but there are a few exceptions. Please chick on the link to the UN Spelling list for the current list of exceptions.
• Writing for the United Nations in Vienna: Editorial Support
  The Editorial staff in Vienna have recently published this very useful website. There are some very useful links here.

Vocabulary Resources

• One Look
  This amazing 'meta-dictionary' allows you to search over 890 dictionaries in one click. A special feature is the 'reverse dictionary'.
• Thesaurus.com
  A great place to find a synonym with a link to 'dictionary.com'.
• Visual Thesaurus