Collected Information about Writing

For All Students

Our on-campus source for information about writing is The Writing Center.

Before writing your project proposal or report, read Hints For Writing Theses or Project Reports. Although this is intended for graduate students, it is very relevant for undergrads as well!

The extremely good Advice on Research and Writing page also contains pointers to web pages with good writing tips. Lots of detailed writing information is also available at the Purdue On-Line Writing Lab. The Writers' Workshop Online Resources for Writers (U. Illinois) is also very good. Also note the nice collection of Writing Resources.

For grammar see the Grammar Handbook at the Writers' Workshop.

For spelling, try the WWWebster or perhaps the Hypertext Webster
To look it up in up to 740 dictionaries at once try OneLook.

For common mistakes see the 20 most common errors.

For a thesaurus see the ROGET'S Thesaurus Search Form.

Go to Great Books Online to find: Strunk's Elements of Style, Bartlett's quotations,The American Heritage Book of English Usage, Roget's The New Thesaurus, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, and the Columbia Encyclopedia.

For answers to a very recent problem, Citing Internet Addresses, see ``A how-to guide for referencing online sources in student bibliographies''. Other citation styles can be used for papers or books.

For a Computer Science view of the choice of punctuation for

``sentence.''

or

``sentence''.

as well as the distinction between `emphasized' text and ``quoted'' text, see the The New Hacker's Dictionary's note about Hacker Writing Style.

When writing email it is extremely important that you adhere to rules of Email Etiquette.

For Undergraduate Students

In addition to the information mentioned above, Prof. Wills has a nice Report Dos and Don'ts page that you should read.

For Graduate Students

Take a careful look at the Advice on Research and Writing web page, especially the entries on:

• Networking on the Network;
• Graduate School info kit for Women (and men too!); {working?}
  Try CRA's Graduate Information Booklet instead (ps). {very slow!}
• How to Be a Good Graduate Student;
• Survival in the Academy;
• A Letter to Research Students.
• Also take a look at Information for Graduate Students in Computer Science.

Dr. David C. Brown	
AI in Design Group
Computer Science Department
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
100 Institute Rd.
Worcester, MA 01609, USA.

Email:  dcb@cs.wpi.edu
Phone: (508) 831-5618
FAX:    (508) 831-5776