By Lesley Vos
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ContributorAugust 6th, 2014
Reasons why young people consider academic writing their worst nightmare vary, but often it is just a lack of information and inspiration
All teachers and educators are familiar with such a problem of every student as writing. Often, it appears to be very difficult for them to write an essay, accomplish a writing task, come up with a great book/article review, etc.
Reasons why young people consider academic writing their worst nightmare can be different, but very often it is just a lack of information and inspiration. How can you help your students here, taking into account the fact they do love modern techs today and do not miss any chance to search the internet for information they are interested in?
Besides dozens of tools students can download to their mobile devices and use for writing, there are many useful and really informative online resources for them to check and try when the help with academic writing is exactly what they need at the moment.
As their teacher, you are welcome to advise your students some of the following: Research:
Coursera – one of the most valuable resources every student must know and visit, as it provides free courses on different fields from many prestigious universities.
Brainy Quote – a place for students to find citations for their papers. This is one of the biggest online collections of quotes from different authors.
IPL – the internet Public Library to find information on different subjects and topics.
DMOZ – a big directory of links for students to find reputable websites and other informative resources in many categories.
The Free Dictionary - a collection of dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauruses; an extensive list of idioms and abbreviations; access to Wikipedia; a list of reference books.
Scholarpedia – a website similar to Wikipedia, but it is more reliable for students, as its content is written and checked by scholars from all over the world.
Better Writing — this website from Oxford Dictionaries provides a variety of resources for students who want to improve the quality of their academic writings.
ChaCha – a website where students can ask questions on different topics that interest them to get answers from personal assistants who will look up this information for them.
TED Talks – videos from conferences on all topics in more than 100 languages: a great place to find information for research and inspiration needed for writing papers.
Literacy and writing instructions
Glossary of Essay Terms — a complete glossary of key terms on essay writing. It helps students understand your tasks better and accomplish them correctly and competently.
The OWL – a free online access to academic writing instructions from Purdue University’s Writing Lab.
Daily Writing Tips — useful tips on writing, including vocabulary, spelling and grammar. Plus, there is much advice from professionals on how to select a writing style, come up with good fresh ideas on writing, etc.
Academhack – a resource to help students learn how to write their papers more effectively with the help of tech tools on the Web.
Grammar Girl — a place to learn how to use all grammar rules properly, and check many guides on writing styles, word usage, punctuation and spelling.
Applications
Zoho – for your students who need to increase their writing productivity.
Bib me – for your students who need to format their writing works properly, using a right citation style (APA, Chicago, MLA, or Turabian).
Auto Crit – for your students who need to fix their writings to avoid mistakes.
Zotero – for your students who need to collect and manage the list of sources they use for citation.
College Ruled – for your students who need to keep their writings organized and scheduled.
Jott – for your students who need to collect ideas for writing, recording their voice. This app will turn a voice into text.
Books
ManyBooks – a resource where your students can find books on nearly every topic for their research or inspiration.
Goodreads – a website of an extensive list of books reviews and recommendations, which can help your students choose the best books for reading, reviewing and citing.
50 Places to Find Books – a really good article which will help your students find 50 places to get free audio books, textbooks, and both fiction and nonfiction books.
Collaboration
Basecamp — an online project created to help multiple users collaborate with each other, brainstorm ideas for writing, share and edit documents, contribute to blogs, and write collectively.
Quora – your students will find the information, share their ideas, ask questions to get a professional help on plenty of subjects.
Upworthy – a great mix of categories that lets your students find all necessary information and catch a muse for writing.
Writing.com – online community for all people connected to writing that offers plenty of writing tools and shares writing instructions with everyone who needs them.
Help your students explore the advantages of educational resources online!Lesley Vos is an educator of French language and a passionate blogger who writes for Bid4papers company. She lives in Chicago and writes her first e-book at the moment. Find Lesley on
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