Writers' Sites

Writers' Online Resources (Part I)

The sites listed below were visited by our intrepid researcher when this article was first published in Southern Write in December, 2011 but we cannot guarantee that by the time you read this some links will no longer exist or be out of date. Also we cannot vouch for them in their entirety, so please remember it's a virtual jungle out there and not all sites are bona fide or to be trusted.

In this two-part article Jennie Cumming looks at how technology is changing the way we check the facts.

Have you ever done a Google search for online writing resources? Have you become lost in an ever-expanding field of embedded links and thought yourself in a three-dimensional maze then found, when you emerged dazed and confused, that it was, in fact, four-dimensional and several hours have passed?

Before you venture in again peruse the following guide and be confident the Great Personal Signposts (GPS) contained herein will return you home unscathed and enlightened.

There are myriad entry points to this maze – and the SA Writers' Centre website www.sawriters.org.au is a great place to start. From here you can branch out to other websites covering the craft of writing. Some help you structure a logical flow to your narrative, others help ensure misunderstandings don't arise from incorrect grammar and some provide exercises to unlock your creativity. Do you want to avoid clichés and choose words that will evoke emotional responses or create vivid mental images for your readers? The web assists.

If your writing requires in-depth research you can access the resources of the 'invisible web', and if you aspire to short story or novel writing there are sites to guide you through the creative process, including instruction on dialogue, plotting, point-of-view and the most important final step of self-editing.

To avoid the 'lost time' phenomenon when searching, stay focussed. Don't follow embedded links unless they are pertinent to your current search.

The sequence of events (narrative) of your story or essay must unfold smoothly and lead the reader down the path of your choosing so they don't fail to see the point of the journey and give up along the way. Paragraphs often pose a problem. Start with sites such as http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/paragraphs.htm that provide advice on developing paragraphs with a logical flow.

It is not only logical sequencing that will keep your readers on the right path, but also your choice of words and use of grammar. Some websites offer exercises and online e-handouts about grammar, and www.chompchomp.com is one such useful site. If you don't have time for the exercises on the 'chompchomp' site they have short cuts to 'Tips and Rules' covering everything from commas to colons. There's no doubt that sorting out your dangling modifiers will be appreciated by your readers but making sure you are using commas properly will be just as useful. Wrong placement, of commas, can be very annoying, and distract from the message you're, trying to convey. Maybe you don't need a comma at all.

If you are told your writing has too many fused sentences like this one you can go to Grammar Bytes and find out what it means you can learn to recognise fused sentences and make the required corrections. You can also learn about interrupters, those words, phrases or clauses that break the flow of a sentence.

If you're seeking inspiration as well as technical guidance you will find it at the excellent Community College site, http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/ that provided earlier assistance with paragraphs. This site offers a range of strategies to stimulate your creativity, including exercises on free-writing, clustering and outlining.

There is a similar tertiary education site at http://thegrammargang.blogspot.com/ where you can follow online discussions and add your own comments. The forum says it is 'where Owls, Possums and Kiwis meet'. It is part of Purdue University's OWL page — your portal to the exciting world of Online Writing Labs. Purdue OWL is affiliated with the University of South Australia, Adelaide University and Massey University (New Zealand) and if you jump from their home page http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ to their site map you can see everything they offer.

The Oxford Dictionary page is another exciting page for writers. It covers grammar, punctuation and spelling, has a blog about writing and presents word games and puzzles to tempt you if you've had enough of research. So for writing facts, features and fun go to http://oxforddictionaries.com/page/betterwriting/better-writing

If your writing is grammatically correct and has a logical shape but you are struggling to find the right word to describe patterns, shapes or matters relating to the senses you could explore http://www.buzzle.com/articles/list-of-descriptive-adjectives.html

Later, when your head is a-buzz with word lists, you can move to discussions about descriptive writing in general. A site aimed at students but useful at many levels is http://www.scribd.com/doc/15178330/Descriptive-Writing The site is hosted by Scribd, a social reading and publishing company, and operates like an online book club. Anyone can join the conversation on a variety of topics from vampire fan fiction and European travel to crossword puzzles ... but let's not stray too far from descriptive writing at present.

Websites like those above assist with finding descriptive adjectives – as does a Thesaurus, either paper-based or electronic – but once you have an armoury of evocative, eloquent words you'll need somewhere to put them: a narrative to adorn. One site offering strategies to tap the wells of creativity is Creative Writing Solutions and there are many similar sites waiting for you to google 'creative writing ideas'.

Beware: a potential trap with letting your creative ideas flow is they may flow in well-worn channels. Your descriptive writing should not rely on clichés because even the most exciting plot will drag if weighed down by stale and predictable language. You could have the time of your life, or on the other hand may find yourself in a hole even though you feel you've barely scratched the surface – oh dear, four clichés – if you explore http://hospitality.hud.ac.uk/studyskills/writing/writingStyle/slang.htm If you actually want a cliché, search http://www.westegg.com/cliche/ Right now I'll just quit while I'm ahead.

If you're searching not for clichés but for research material you know must be somewhere on the web, and you can't find it using regular search engines, you need to access the area known as the 'deep web' or 'invisible web'. The addresses below can help your search:

• http://completeplanet.com This provides an extensive listing of databases that may not appear when using conventional search engine technology. Amongst other things there is a 'literature' link which leads to 'writing' and to writers' forums, including one at http://www.writers.net/
• http://www.doaj.org/ The aim of the Directory of Open Access Journals is to increase the visibility and ease of use of open access scientific and scholarly journals. It is a full-text searchable database.
• http://findarticles.com/ This site indexes over 10 million articles from different publications including a link to the FBI Law Enforcement magazine should you need it.
• http://www.findlaw.com/ Is your crime novel based in America? This site offers information on American legal issues organized by categories such as criminal law, family law, wills and estates.
• http://highwire.stanford.edu/ The Stanford University HighWire site has a huge database of free, full-text, scholarly content but you have to pay for some of the articles they link to.
• http://infomine.ucr.edu/ This is a research database created by librarians for use at the university level.

Once it has been published in Southern Write sometime in the New Year, Part II of this article will become available online.