teaching with writing
grammar, mechanics, & usage: web resources
quick reference: grammar & mechanics
Big Dog's Grammar: A Bare Bones Guide to English
As the site's subtitle promises, this resource offers quick, bare-bones explanations of key terms and concepts that help writers produce grammatical sentences.
HyperGrammar
This guide from the Writing Centre at the University of Ottawa provides definitions and examples, all of which are crossreferenced via hyperlink so that students can build their own understanding of grammar and punctuation concepts as needed.
Grammar, Punctuation, and Spelling
The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) is the preeminent online writing center resource in the country. This section of the OWL offers a variety of lessons on grammar, punctuation, and spelling from which users can choose.
Quicktips
These home-grown resources from the University of Minnesota's Center for Writing are available in html and pdf forms.
quick reference: usage
American Heritage Book of English Usage
This resource offers explanations of typical grammar, usage, and style conventions in a tightly-organized format.
Common Errors in English Usage
An online version of Paul Brians's book by the same name, this site lists words that writers often confuse (e.g., assure/ensure/insure) and phrases that writers often render improperly (e.g., “for all intensive purposes” rather than the correct “for all intents and purposes”). This site is valuable for native and non-native speakers of English alike.
in-depth resources: grammar, mechanics, & usage
Sentence Sense
Rich in detail, this “online textbook in basic writing” contains two full chapters on grammar and usage. Users of the grammar section can learn the definitions of grammar terms and complete practice exercises. The usage section includes sections on standard written English conventions like final “-ed”s and subject-verb agreement.
grammar & usage resources designed for non-native speakers of English
Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary Online
An invaluable resource for learners of English, this dictionary provides information on which words take articles and on what prepositions to use, and it provides several sample phrases and sentences to help writers check usage.
note: this resource is best viewed in Firefox.
Cambridge International Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs
This resource can help English language learners determine what verb/preposition combination to use in order to denote different meanings. To see some of the features of this dictionary, users might explore the entries for “work” and for “write.”
Dave's ESL cafe
This commercial site, which includes message boards and job listings along with help on standard tricky features of English, is a “go-to” resource for non-native speakers of English and their instructors.
English for Non-Native Speakers
Here, students can select from a clearinghouse of list of online resources collected by the Writing Program at the University of Chicago.
advice on proofreading
How to Proofread
From the Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin, this site breaks proofreading down into a three-part process.
Proofreading for Common Surface Errors: Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar
This online pamphlet from Indiana University's Writing Tutorial Services lists common errors and delineates methods for finding and fixing them.
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