Five Important Links to Help Jump Start Your Academic Writing Career
The ability to become successful in one’s academic writing career requires experience and familiarity in writing and a particular discipline. Individuals seeking to pursue this career either part-time or full-time must understand that there are numerous areas to consider. Excellent writers are able to convey information according to requirements as well as properly utilize resources available. Also, quality work comes from adherence to instructions, adequate command of the English language and applying necessary citation styles to mitigate plagiarism. Given these expectations, here are examples of links that can reinforce relevant skills and capabilities among writers.
Purdue University Online Writing Lab
The Purdue University Online Writing Lab or simply OWL is one of the many tools that can help aspiring academic writers understand the fundamentals necessary to become competent in the discipline. The site offers numerous resources that can help advance topics such as writing, research, grammar and more importantly the style guides. Since academic writing remains to be dependent on the use of proper citations and referencing, OWL can offer writers of various styles such as American Psychological Association (APA), Modern Language Association (MLA) and Chicago Manual of Style.
Grammar Girl
Another link that can be useful for aspiring academic writers is Grammar Girl. The blog offers numerous suggestions on how people can develop familiarity with writing. Topics such as grammar, punctuation, word usage are discussed. Likewise, there are also numerous tips that can help people familiarize on how to use these in actual writing. The author of the website makes use of images and graphics to further familiarize readers with how to utilize a particular topic. Browsing through these topics can serve to offer ways for writers to examine areas for improvement and apply the lessons to their own writing style.
Google Scholar
Academic writers need to understand that relying on Google alone does not provide quality results all the time. That is why another link that is valuable for writers is Google Scholar. Compared to its search engine, Google Scholar only offers search results that are academic in nature. This means that writers can access relevant information from books, online journals, periodicals and other studies pertaining to a particular topic. This can be a valuable resource to consider in doing more intricate research because it can provide insights on what references are readily available.
Microsoft Academic Search
Another alternative resource for beginning academic writers is Microsoft Academic Search. Just like Google Scholar, it is a database of resources from various disciplines. The repository holds data and studies from scientific journals to annals coming from social sciences. With numerous contributors submitting in the website, this can be a good place to start looking for research-related information or gathering resources. In addition, writers can customize their search by author, publications keywords and others.
Google Books
Another important resource coming from Google is Google Books. It is in this page that aspiring academic writers can access online books for free. There are numerous available titles from various disciplines. It is important to note that not all books have open access to information. There are different views accessible which include: snippet view, preview and full text. Depending on the availability of access, writers can utilize the information to conduct research and gather references essential to complete the paper.
Putting It All Together
Overall, these five links remain to be essential in shaping familiarity to the interesting world of academic writing. Each example helps cultivate critical skills such as research, grammar, writing style and proper use of citation styles. Having a firm foundation about these areas can greatly improve the capabilities of writers to advance writing skills.
