Web Resources for Writers

In case you were wondering, John McIntyre doesn't boycott restaurants with misspellings on their "desert" menus. And he doesn't care how you talk or how you write--unless you happen to be writing for The Baltimore Sun, where he's assistant managing editor for the copy desk. If you work for the Sun--or follow McIntyre's blog, You Don't Say--you'll know why he favors the verb "career" over "careen," and why the phrase "with apologies to" appears on his list of "proscribed lame devices."

McIntyre's blog is one of the entries on our recently updated collection of Top Ten Blogs for Writers, Editors, and Teachers of Writing. While we always welcome your company here at About Grammar & Composition, now and then we like to point out other online resources that might be helpful. Here are some good starting points.

• English Grammar and Usage Advice Sites
  For answers to questions about some of the finer and fussier aspects of the language, visit these three question-and-answer sites--all of them hosted by publishers of major style and usage guides.



• Daily Word Sites: Learn a New Word Every Day
  Here are three of our favorite word-of-the-day sites (with six runners-up): all are free and available through e-mail subscriptions.



• Sites for Correcting Common Sentence Errors
  These five websites focus on the most common errors in English: how to recognize those errors and (more importantly) how to correct them.



• Top Five Business Writing Sites
  Business writers are often called on to compose special kinds of projects (such as memos, letters, reports, and proposals) that follow distinctive conventions. To learn more about those conventions, visit one of these outstanding websites for business writers.



• Best Online Writing Labs
  Many colleges and universities host exceptional online writing labs--or OWLs, as they are commonly called. The instructional materials and quizzes available at these sites are generally suitable for writers of all ages and at all academic levels. Here are five of the very best OWLs.

To recommend an outstanding writing or editing site that we may have overlooked, please click on "comments" below.