Useful Links and Resources for Students

Writing Labs

There are numerous online resources available to writers, including Online Writing Labs (OWLS) of various sorts: ones staffed by trained tutors that respond to writing you submit via email, and ones that have collections of helpful handouts and exercises. Most are free to use but may be restricted to currently enrolled students at the institution that supports the OWL. Others are open to all comers, and recently, some commercial sites have sprung up that will help you with your writing for a fee. Some of those are just as scrupulously careful as the best tutoring centers about teaching you how to improve your writing, and not improving it for you. Others, however, are really just editing services or worse--paper mills, that will sell you polishing services or completed texts for a price.

Here are links to some sources of online writing assistance that are free and highly reputable.

• TCNJ's Online Writing Lab
• The Paradigm Online Writing Assistant
• The Purdue Online Writing Lab
• Duke University Writing Studio

Other Useful Links and Resources

• Placement and Exemption Exam Rubric The rubric used for the Placement and Exemption Exam at The College of New Jersey.
• "The Writing Process" (From the University of Kansas) Contains links from brainstorming to thesis support.
• "Academic Essays" (From the University of Kansas) Contains practical guidelines for how to write different types of essays.
• "Writing College Level Papers" (From the University of Dartmouth) Contains very indepth and helpful explanations of writing a college-level paper.