Useful Resources for Writing and Research

• APA Documentation Format (from APA)
• MLA Documentation Format for Internet Documents  (from MLA)
• Writing with Sources (Harvard University) includes good advice about when and how much to cite. (New URL) C
• Citation Styles Online. This site from Bedford/St. Martin's Press (publisher of The Bedford Handbook) includes MLA, APA, Chicago, and CBE styles.
• Chicago Manual of Style: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). This site by the editors of the Chicago Manual of Style has a question-and-answer forum for readers.

Search Sites

• A9.com. This site is affiliated with Amazon.com; its results include books.
• Alltheweb. Claims to search more web pages than any other search engine. Has recently begun to identify sponsored links.
• Gigablast. According to Scripting News, this new site uses a searching algorithm that is different from Google's.
• Google. Ranks sites by their popularity and length of visitors' browsing at the site. Places sponsored links off to the side; does not allow paid placement.

• Google Groups Search Usenet newsgroup discussions from 1995 on; formerly DejaNews.
• Google Images. Search for images on the web.
• Google Scholar. This new search feature from Google finds scholarly articles about the search term, although its range seems more limited than those of the subject-specific database search tools available at Foley.
• Google Print. Searches for phrases or names in books.
• Findarticles.com. In addition to WSU's online resources for retrieving the full text of articles, try Findarticles.com, which offers free access to some magazines, newspapers, and scholarly journals.
• Librarians' Index to the Internet. Subject tree directory with reviewed links chosen by professional librarians.
• Infomine. Scholarly resources online. 
• DMOZ Open Directory Project.
• SearchEdu.com. Uses Google but searches only university (educational) sites and provides links to search military and government pages.
• Mamma. Metasearch site.

Search Sites with Sponsored Links: The following search engines put sponsored advertising links first in their rankings. 

• LookSmart  Ranks paid listings first, but it is compiled by human beings and offers different choices from some of the other search engines. It is the search engine for FindArticles.com, which offers scholarly articles from selected publications for free online.
• About.com. Commercial search site with human "guides" to content areas.
• Yahoo. Subject tree directory with useful links selected by Yahoo personnel (not computers). Update: Yahoo has now gone to a "paid inclusion" model, so its results may be influenced by fees paid by companies.
• AskJeeves.Lists sponsored links first but clearly marks them as sponsored links.
• Dogpile. Compiles what it says are the best of Google, Yahoo, and AskJeeves results.
• AltaVista. Lists its paid rankings first under "Products and Services." 
• Lycos. Indicates paid rankings by placing them under "Featured Links." 
• Metacrawler. Venerable site lists commercial links along with others.
• Search.com. Metasearch site; puts sponsored links first but marks them as such.

• Online Writing Labs These sites have online tutorials, handouts, and more.    
• Online Grammar Exercises from St. Martin's Press.
• The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing from the University of Maryland
• Exercise Central (Grammar) from St. Martin's Press
• Common Errors in English (Washington State University)
• Confusing Words is a searchable site of 3210 words that often give writers trouble: affect/effect, disinterested/uninterested, and so on.
• HyperGrammar (University of Ottawa)
• Strunk's Elements of Style 
• Critical Reading offers good information about reading and analysis.

ESL Links top

• ESL Home Page. A collection of ESL links.
• ESL Blue(s) Site from Canada. User-friendly site has interactive exercises and a conversational tone.
• Dave's ESL Cafe is another friendly, community-oriented site; in addition to coverage of phrasal verbs and the like, it includes a section on slang.
• 1-language.com. Commercial site with many interactive quizzes.
• English Maze is an interactive site with various levels for ESL learners; it has some free modules for practicing written and oral forms of English. (Requires Flash plug-in.)
• English Language Forum provides a free web-based discussion forum on learning English; it includes a forum on commonly asked questions about English.
• 
  Reference Sites

• Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia with entries written by volunteers. Note: since anyone can update this site, entries, especially those on controversial topics, may not be accurate.
• Encyclopedia.com. Online encyclopedia; returns results from the Columbia Encyclopedia and also from Highbeam Research's collection of articles for purchase.
• A Web of Online Dictionaries (includes 800 dictionaries in 150 languages; commercial site with lots of ads).
• Google Translation Tool
• Norton Guide to Literary Terms
• Merriam-Webster Dictionary. This site also includes a downloadable toolbar for looking up words directly from your browser.
• Literature Sites on the Internet
• Silva Rhetoricae (The Forest of Rhetoric).  This is a guide to classical rhetorical terms, including definitions and examples.

• Anti-spam Registry (http://registry.waisp.org/). Washington State has strong anti-spam laws. If you are a resident of Washington State, you can register your e-mail address, which gives you certain rights under the law against  spammers.
• New York Times Newsroom Navigator. This is the page that the New York Times newsroom uses as its gateway to the Web.  It includes links to a host of search engines, including some unusual ones, reference and news sites, newspapers and magazines online, and much more.
• Proofreader's and Editor's Symbols. Just what it says it is: a handy online guide to the marks used by editors and proofreaders.
• Arts and Letters Daily. Newspapers, magazines, columnists, and more.
• Yale C/AIMStyle Guide. Comprehensive guide for creating web pages.

• Search Engine Watch provides information to help you evaluate the capabilities of various search engines, including which search engines allow sites to pay for a high ranking. 
• Web Research Tutorial.An old but still good guide. Also see another older site, Evaluating Web Sites.

Toolbars

• The Google Toolbar adds a search box and a popup blocker to Internet Explorer.
• Merriam-Webster toolbar puts a search box for looking up words in the Merriam-Webster College Dictionary on your browser toolbar--very handy.

Citing Sources

• Scholar's Aid Lite is a freeware program that allows you to keep notes in order and helps you to create bibliographies in proper format.
• Landmark Citation Machine. Copy and paste your references into the forms at this page, and it will automatically generate APA- or MLA-formatted bibliographic citations.
• WSU has a resource called Endnote Web that you can try if you want to, but good luck getting it to work.

Web Page Creation. Web 1stpage 2000 is a free web site creation program.

General Software Downloads are available from Tucows, ZDNet, CNET's Download.com, Sourceforge.net, and CWSInternet. At these sites, you can download utilities such as WS_FTP, ZoneAlarm, and other useful software.

Sharing Pictures Online .Flickr , Hello , and Photobucket are three sites that allow you to share photos and are integrated with blogging sites such as LiveJournal.

RSS feed readers. An RSS feed (or Atom, XML, or other forms of feeds) allows you to read the updates to weblogs and news sites from one convenient page without ads or spam. You can find popular blogs and newsfeeds at Technorati and other sites. Here are some popular feed readers:

• Bloglines is a web-based feed reader that includes a good search feature for blogs. It also has an easy-to-post blog feature and a desktop notification system. It is very easy to use.
• Blogstreet is another web-based feed reader; it includes a ranking system as well.
• MyYahoo is an easy feed reader to use if you have a Yahoo! account.
• Pluck is a downloadable installation that works with Internet Explorer. (FeedDemon is another, but it isn't free.)
• Sage is a downloadable feedreader extension for Firefox.

Blogging sites. Among the many free blogging sites available are Blogger, LiveJournal, and Mo'time.

Miscellaneous Useful Tools

• Make PDF files. PDFCreator is shareware (donation requested but not required) that allows you to convert Microsoft documents (including Publisher files) into Adobe .pdf format.
• See if Amazon or B & N books are available at WSU. WSU Library Lookup. If you use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer as your web browser, and if you look up books on the Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble sites, this bookmarklet can help you to see whether a book is available at the library. To use it, drag it (don't click on it) to your toolbar in Firefox. (You only have to do this once; it will stay on your toolbar.) Once you're on the Amazon.com or bn.com page of the book you want to look up, click on the button "Bookmarklet for WSU" on your toolbar. A new window will open that will tell you whether the book is available. (From John Udell's Library Lookup generator.)
• Use all your IM addresses from one program. Trillian is an instant messaging client that allows you to use AIM, MSN Messenger, ICQ, and Yahoo! Messenger all in one program.

For Fun

• FirstLines.  Test yourself to see if you recognize the first lines of literary works.
• Word of the Day from the Oxford English Dictionary site.