Online Resources
- MICUSP - 824 Sample PapersA collection of over 800 A grade papers (more than 2 million words) from a range of disciplines across four academic divisions (Humanities and Arts, Social Sciences, Biological and Health Sciences, Physical Sciences) of the University of Michigan.
- Purdue Online Writing LabThese Purdue OWL resources will help ESL students in second language writing. This section includes resources on writing across the curriculum, writing in the disciplines, and it contains links to OWL workshops and exercises useful for ESL students. This section also includes links to ESL resources on the Internet.
- Visual Thesaurus This link opens in a new windowUsing this link to the pre-paid UM Library subscription, users can access the full range of Visual Thesaurus (VT) features. VT allows you to see a visual network diagram of synonyms and related (or opposite) words to almost any word you can think of. You can find alternate words when writing a paper, or look up an unfamiliar word to see what words it is related to. If you set up your own free account within the paid UM Library account, you can save wordlists for future access. You can use the "Vocab Grabber" tool on the Visual Thesaurus homepage to preview the most common and the most unique vocabulary in a text before reading it, or to analyze the distribution of types of vocabulary in something you've written, compared to published texts in your field.
- Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)Hosted by Brigham Young University, the COCA database contains 450 million words of spoken and written English. Users can sign up for a free account, and can search the database for word or phrase usage examples and relative frequency, for words that show up frequently together (like "research paper" is far more common than "research essay" or "researching paper"), or words of a similar spelling pattern for pronunciation practice (like all verbs ending in "ite" or "ight"). The powerful search interface can be tricky to use, but there is documentation available at http://www.americancorpus.org via the "Where should I start?" link in the Information pane. You can also access COCA features in a simpler search interface at http://wordandphrase.info.
Dictionaries
- Oxford English Dictionary (Third Edition) This link opens in a new windowNew web version of the most complete and authoritative dictionary of the English language.
- Dictionary.comFree online dictionary with recorded pronounciation of words.
- Merriam-Webster.comOnline version of this popular English language dictionary.
- Online Collocations Dictionarywww.ozdic.com brings you a completely new type of dictionary that will help English lerners write and speak natural-sounding English. Collocations - common word combinations such as 'bright idea' or 'talk freely' - are the essential building blocks of natural-sounding English. The dictionary contains over 150,000 collocations for nearly 9,000 headwords. The dictionary shows all the words that are commonly used in combination with each headword: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions as well as common phrases. The dictionary is based on the 100 million word British National Corpus. Internet searches were made to ensure the most up-to-date usage for fast changing areas of language such as computing.
Writing Guides
The print writing guides below are all located in the Shapiro and Hatcher Libraries. Click the following link for library floor plans.
Academic Writing for Graduate Students by Call Number: PE 1408 .S7836 2012ISBN: 0472034758Publication Date: 2012-07-09Like its predecessor, the third edition of Academic Writing for Graduate Students explains understanding the intended audience, the purpose of the paper, and academic genres; includes the use of task-based methodology, analytic group discussion, and genre consciousness-raising; shows how to write summaries and critiques; features "language focus" sections that address linguistic elements as they affect the wider rhetorical objectives; and helps students position themselves as junior scholars in their academic communities.
A Writer's Reference with Resources for Multilingual Writers and ESL by Call Number: PE1408 .H2778 2011ISBN: 9780312649364Publication Date: 2011-01-21
The Everyday Writer by Call Number: PE 1408 .L86 2016ISBN: 1457698471Publication Date: 2016-01-05Contexts for writing keep changing, and Andrea Lunsford knows that every writer needs to engage with audiences and communicate ideas every day. The Everyday Writer shows novice writers how to navigate rhetorical situations and make effective choices everywhere they write. The illustrations, by Eisner Award nominee GB Tran, offer a high-interest approach to writing processes and encourage students to open and use their handbook. And Andrea's friendly voice is always front and center, ready to answer any question. With new and expanded coverage of presentations and multimodal projects, integrated advice for writers from all language and educational backgrounds, and help learning the moves that make expert writers credible, The Everyday Writer is the encouraging guide students need to take their writing to the next level.
The Wadsworth Handbook by Call Number: PE 1408 .K6758 2011ISBN: 9781428291935Publication Date: 2010-01-01Includes a chapter titled "Bilingual and ESL writers".
The St. Martin's Handbook by Call Number: PE1112 .L86 2009ISBN: 9780312443177Publication Date: 2007-02-22Includes a section for multilingual writers.
Rules for Writers by Call Number: PE 1408 .H277 2008ISBN: 9780312452766Publication Date: 2007-10-03Has information for ESL students.
A Writer's Reference by Call Number: PE1408 .H2778 2011ISBN: 0312601433Publication Date: 2010-10-256th edition of this widely used writing guide.
Last Updated: Jan 29, 2025 11:37 PM
Subjects: Humanities