English Program
English Links
Dictionaries | e-Texts | Grammar/Writing | Media
Poetry |
Reference
|
Rhetoric
Study Guides |
Comprehensive Links
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
is the searchable online version with over 90,000 entries featuring 10,000 new words and
senses, 70,000 audio word pronunciations, 900 full-page color illustrations, language notes and
word-root appendixes. The site includes articles on regional patterns of American English; the
Indo-European and Semitic roots of English; variation and change in our living language; and usage
in the dictionary.
Hyper Dictionary (The Exploding Dictionary), by Chris Knight, is a thoroughly hyperlinked dictionary, where every word of every definition is linked to another set of definitions.
Merriam-Webster site is based on the Webster 10th Collegiate edition, 1993. With
more than 160,000 entries, the dictionary presents each word by definition, pronunciation, usage,
grammatical function, and a brief etymology. A thesaurus can be queried for similar words,
hypertext cross references are available and misspellings return suggested spellings. An
extensive pronunciation guide is accompanied by sound files for the pronunciation of more than
100,000 words.
e-Texts
The
4 Literature site contains thousands of classic books, searchable by title,
author, or index. The site is especially strong for the works of Shakespeare, religious and
historical documents, children's fairy tales, Greek and Roman classics, and books by famous
American authors of the 19th century.
The
Alex Catalog of Electronic Texts is a collection of documents from American and
English literature. The site includes tools to download the texts as .
pdf files (Adobe's Portable Document Format file) and tools for search the
downloaded document. The site can be browsed by author, title, date, or search.
American Hypertexts, from the University of Virginia presents almost 100 classic
works in American Studies including texts by authors such as Crevecoeur, Tocqueville, Henry Adams,
and Mark Twain.
BookRags has comprehensive guides to classic literature notes and a message board
for over 100 classic works. The site has useful content in spite of numerous pop-up windows. (If
the pop-ups become too annoying, upgrade your browser or use the free program
WebWasher (for Windows, Macintosh, or Linux).
The Libraries at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill sponsor
Documenting the American South, a collection of Southern Literature of one hundred
of its most important literary works. The bibliography was compiled by the late Professor Robert
Bain, based on suggestions from colleagues in Southern studies around the country. This site
includes the texts of works by such 19th century Southern authors as Edgar Allan Poe, Kate Chopin,
Ellen Glasgow, and Charles Chesnutt.
The
Electronic Text Center, from the Library at the University of Virginia, contains
an on-line archive of several thousand of SGML and XML- electronic texts and images with a library
service that offers hardware and software suitable for the creation and analysis of text. E-books
are available for Microsoft Reader and the Palm Pilot.
Grammar and Writing
A+ Research & Writing for High School and College Students is an excellent
step-by-step guide to writing research papers which includes tips for getting started; finding
information in cyberspace and in the library; and a good annotated list of links to online
resources for research and writing.
The American Heritage Book of English Usage offers advice on grammar, style,
diction, word formation, gender, social groups and scientific forms, This reference work is
designed for students and writers concerned about proper writing style.
Jane Straus' book,
The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation
, contains exercises and tests online. Writing tips and links to other grammar
resources are included.
Elements of Style
, by William Strunk is the classic 1918 edition on grammar and composition emphasizing
simplicity of style. The resource has a list of words and expressions commonly misspelled or
misused.
The Longman English Pages site contains original resources for users, both
students and instructors, and interested browsers for all their English texts in the fields of
composition, literature, developmental skills, and technical writing.
Guide to Grammar and Writing is an extensive guide to effective use of the English
language. The site includes definitions of sentence parts, rules for comma usage and other
punctuation marks, plurals and possessives, spelling, nouns and modifiers, words and phrases to
avoid, capitalization, spelling and abbreviations, and a lot more. Many interactive quizzes and
exercises are included as well as a "Ask Grammar" section where you can post questions. The site is
maintained by Professor Charles Darling for English courses at Capital Community College.
Resources for Writers and Writing Instructors , by Jack Lynch at Rutgers University contains links to general resources, style guides, rhetoric, grammars, dictionaries, literary terms, writing and research resources.
The University of Victoria
Writer's Guide is an comprehensive indexed introduction to the process of writing
and the study of literature.
Media—Audio/Video
AudioBooksForFree.com is a collection of fiction and nonfiction MP3 audio books is
financed with brief commercials (less than 5% of book length) between book chapters. Children's
books carry no advertising. Browse for desired books by author, title, and genre or use the search
engine with filter settings for strong language, duration, author, and adult content. Registration
required to download.
Booknotes.org contains a transcript archive for the last twelve years of America's
finest authors on reading, writing, and the power of ideas. The site includes transcripts and
RealVideo clips from the C-SPAN show.
The Online Language Laboratory is an "archive of human speech sounds" for
people learning a language who want to speak as a native speaker. Students of English can
hear the accents of American, British, Australian, Canadian, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh
speakers.
Poetry
Find a poet or a poem, literary links, on-line discussion, and audio files.
The American Verse Project is a collaborative project between the University of
Michigan
Humanities Text Initiative and the
University of Michigan Press. The
project is an electronic archive of volumes of American poetry prior to 1920.
British Women Romantic Poets includes electronic editions of works published by
British women poets between 1789 and 1832. Tools for search and analysis of these SGML texts
are provided by the
Humanities Text Initiative at the University of
Michigan.
Classic Poetry: For Students Who Hate Poetry offers assistance in writing about poetry by suggesting topics and offering exercises. The site has a directory of links to poets and their poems, links to critical and scholarly essays about poets and poetry, and original weekly features about poetry. Classic Poetry is maintained by Linda Sue Grimes, a former Ball State University professor.
Reference
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature is an encyclopedia in 18
volumes, published by Putnam (1907-21) and by Bartleby (2000). The Cambridge History contains
over 11,000 pages, with essay topics ranging from poetry, fiction, drama and essays to history,
theology and political writing. The set encompasses a wide selection of writing on orators,
humorists, poets, newspaper columnists, religious leaders, economists, Native Americans, song
writers, and even non-English writing, such as Yiddish and Creole.
Literary Encyclopedia and Literary Dictionary lists most classic British and
American writers and their works. The site features a style book, author biographies, text
profiles, timelines, and glossary of literary terms.
Literary Mailing Lists is maintained by Jack Lynch at Rutgers. The site contains links to mailing lists covering 18th century, 20th century, African, American, Chicano, Cultural, E-Resources, general, history, medieval, pedagogical, Philosophical, Renaissance, Romantic, Science Fiction, Sister, Theatre, Theory, and Victorian literature.
Rhetoric
The purpose of
ComPile is to allow ready reference to published twentieth-century work in
post-secondary composition and rhetoric, from the beginning of WWII to the end of the
century. CompPile inventories over 35,000 items, including journal articles, review-essays,
notes and comments, books, and edited collections.
The
EServer houses collections on such diverse topics as contemporary art, race,
Internet studies, sexuality, drama, design, multimedia, accessible publishing and current political
and social issues. The EServer, formerly the English Server at Carnegie Mellon, now at the
University of Washington, includes hypertexts, audio and video recordings.
Rhetoric Resources at Tech offers an annotated hypertexual introduction to
important ideas and important persons in the study of rhetoric. Annotated bibliography and
links are provided to related topics for both print and Internet. Papers are contributed by
students and faculty at Georgia Tech.
The Forest of Rhetoric is a guide to hundreds of classical and renaissance terms,
the purposes of rhetoric, its history, and examples of rhetorical analysis--by Dr. Gideon Burton of
Brigham Young University.
Voice of the Shuttle Literature Pages includes selective and extensive links to
the following areas: Anglo-Saxon and medieval, renaissance and 17th century, restoration and
18th century, romantics, Victorian, modern (British and American), contemporary (British and
American), American literature, minority literatures, other literatures en English, English
literature By genre, creative writing, English and comparative literature departments, courses in
English and American literature.
Study Guides
AntiStudy.com is a search engine for free book notes and literature study guides
online—including book summaries and literary analysis. AntiStudy searches SparkNotes, Barrons Book
Notes, PinkMonkey, NovelGuide, and other study-guide sites for free book notes. Direct links are
provided for each on-line study guide.
FreeBooknotes is a comprehensive guide to book summaries, literature notes, and
study guides for over 250 classic books. The site also includes indexed book notes from other major
study guide sites (PinkMonkey, Barrons, Sparknotes, and so forth).
Novelguide is a good source for literary analysis on the Web. About one hundred
classic novels are analyzed by summary, character analysis, metaphor analysis, theme analysis,
quotes, and biography. Also provided are literature profiles, metaphor analysis, theme analyses,
and author biographies.
PinkMonkey.com is designed for middle school, high school, home school, and
college students as well as teachers. The main content of the site is the more than 300 literature
summaries (by chapter), which include 109 Barron's Booknotes and 200+ MonkeyNotes booknotes. The
site also contains lengthy study guides in many academic areas, a digital library of around 2,000
classic texts. Registration (free) is required at this site.
Harvard students and teachers provide e-texts and study guides including plot summaries
quizzes, and discussion forums for about 150 literature classics. Topic areas include
literature, Shakespeare, poetry, history, biography, philosophy, economics, mathematics, computer
science, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, health and nutrition. In literature,
each
SparkNote contains sections on context, characters, overall summary,
chapter-by-chapter summary and commentary, study questions, and a message board for collaborative
learning
Brians' Study Guides collection includes a wide range of literature
including works of science fiction; 19th and 20th century European classics; love poetry; world
literature in English of India, Africa, and the Caribbean; and the Bible as literature.
Bibliographies and related links are provided for some of the authors. The guides are prepared by
Paul Brians, Department of English, Washington State University.
Comprehensive Links
The Literature and Books section of the
Librarians' Guide to the Internet lists general resources, authors, country
extensive categories. The site is very selective with excellent annotation.
The Open Directory Project provides selective, but extensive literature links.
refdesk.com includes facts, encyclopedia, and a special section on
Grammar, Usage, and Style . The
site touts fast access and comprehensive content for indexing and navigation of high quality
Internet sites.
