Take a look at these free resources to help improve your writing.
Online Writing Resources
If you're looking to improve your writing, check out these resources online.
- Discovery – search articles, books, media, reports and more
- Library Catalogue
- Periodical Databases (most databases require proxy server access from home and are restricted to student use only)
- Research Assistance (information on library and web research)
- Online Resource Portal (includes links to Internet search engines, useful reference websites and a selection of Internet resources that support Capilano University courses)
- Visual Thesaurus
- Roget's Thesaurus
- John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations
- Strunk and White's The Elements of Style
- Merriam-Webster Online
- YourDictionary.com
- Online Rhyming Dictionary
- Heteronyms (words that are spelled the same but have different meanings when pronounced differently - e.g. wind or lead)
- Antagonyms (words with opposite meanings - e.g. where "bad" can mean either bad or good depending on context)
- APA libguide and MLA libguide
- Overview of APA Referencing Style
- APA format for Research Projects
- Purdue Online Writing Lab
- Chicago Manual Style Online (free trial available)
- Hypergrammar
- Paradigm Online Writing Assistant (a guide to essay writing)
- Purdue University Online Grammar Handouts
- EPC (Electronic Poetry Centre)
- Complete Works of Shakespeare
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti Archive
- Literary Encyclopedia
- Postcolonial and Postimperial Literature in English
- Victorian Web
- Voice of the Shuttle
- Focusing on Words (Latin and Greek elements in words)
- Common Errors in English
- World Wide Words by Michael Quinion (Articles on quirky words and usage)
- Critical Reading and Effective Writing by Dan Kurland
- Oral Presentations
Popular Writing Handouts
These helpful handouts can help you through challenges with your writing.
- 820.1: Writing Process Getting Started (pdf)
- 820.6: Thesis Statement (pdf)
- 820.7: Outlines (pdf)
- 820.8: Writing the Introduction (doc)
- 820.10: Writing Conclusion (doc)
- 840.7: The Literary Essay (pdf)
- 840.8: Elements of Fiction (pdf)
- 840.8.1: Sample Analysis Fiction (doc)
- 840.8.2: Sample Explication Fiction (pdf)
- 840.9: Analyzing Poetry (pdf)
- 840.9.1: Sample Explication Poetry (pdf)
- 840.9.2: Poetry Terms (pdf)
- 840.10: Analyzing Drama (pdf)
- 750.1: Count and non-count nouns (pdf)
- 750.2: Articles (pdf)
- 750.3: Prepositions Time Place (pdf)
- 750.4: Verb, Form, Tense etc. (pdf)
- 730.8: Apostrophe (pdf)
- 740.3: Semicolon (pdf)
- 740.4: Colon (pdf)
- 740.4a: Colon Exercise (pdf)
- 740.5: Comma (doc)
- 740.9: Ellipsis (pdf)
- 820.5.2: Reading and notetaking (pdf)
- 820.9.2: Incorporating Source Material (pdf)
- 820.9.3: Documenting Sources (pdf)
- 820.9.3.2: What is Plagiarism (pdf)
- 820.9.4: APA Style (pdf)
- 820.9.5X: MLA Style (pdf)
- 820.9.6: Documenting Sources History Papers (doc)
- 840.1: Summary (pdf)
- 840.1.1: Critical Analysis (pdf)
- 840.2: Research Essay (pdf)
- 840.5a: Annotated Bibliography APA (pdf)
- 840.5b: Annotated Bibliography MLA (doc)
- 840.7.1: Explication (pdf)
- 840.8.3: Terms-Analysis of Fiction (pdf)
- 840.11: Writing Philosophy Paper (pdf)
- 840.12: Research Papers in Psychology (pdf)
- 720.7.1: Comma Splices (pdf)
- 720.7.2: Sentence Fragments (pdf)
- 720.7.4: Faulty Parallelism (pdf)
- 720.7.6: Wordiness (pdf)
- 710.3.8: Subject-Verb Agreement (pdf)