You’ve done your best and got yourself into a college? Congrats! But that’s just the beginning of your journey. From the very first weeks, you will get a lot of assignments, whatever major you’ve chosen. You should know that the papers you write will make a significant impact on your course grade; that’s why you’ll want to make sure that you are writing decent ones. Below, we have prepared a list of 5 free resources that will help you with your academic writing, especially with the tricky referencing styles.
1. Purdue OWL
The topmost source of academic writing help is Purdue OWL, which stands for Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab. The source provides students with information on everything related to academic writing. The website includes styles and formatting guides, tips on how to craft various types of academic papers, including essays, argumentative papers, research papers, reviews, and research proposals. It also contains info on the subject-specific writing, as well as the citation guides for MLA, APA, and Chicago formatting and referencing styles.
2. The MLA Website
This is the official website of Modern Language Association. If you are a language or literature student, this resource will be of a great help. The website hosts a number of useful tools and materials for students to use. For example, the MLA International Bibliography. There students can find extensive information on various scholarly publications, including articles, research papers, and book chapters in manuscripts or journals. This tool is subscription-based and can be accessed through your university library’s website. But what’s much more useful, is the style help subdomain. Here, you will find a lot of tips and tricks on using the MLA academic style, creating papers, and referencing the sources, with a search option and a FAQ section.
3. The APA Style
This is the official website of the American Psychological Association. It contains free guides on referencing and formatting, video tutorials, a FAQ section, and even more additional information on using the MLA style. On the website, you can also buy The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. If you are a social sciences student, it might be good to get the book and use it throughout your studies.
4. UsingEnglish
Originally, UsingEnglish.com is a resource for those whose first language is not English. However, it can be of a great help to everyone who deals with writing in English, especially academic writing. The website helps students with grammar and with finding the right words; it also assists them in writing bibliographies, as well as properly using a particular academic style. The resource also has a forum where students can consult each other on a variety of academic topics.
5. University of Toronto
The official website of the University of Toronto, Canada, provides students with a concise resource dedicated to academic writing. It is free to use, no matter if you are a student of this college or not. It will guide you through the writing process, teach you the specifics of each type of paper, and will provide you with valuable tips on particular aspects of writing and language (comma splices, passive voice, using unbiased language, and more). The greatest advantage of this resource is its structuredness and conciseness, like in the case of the Purdue OWL. You will easily find the topics of interest and will find the exact information that you need.
There is a bunch of online resources that provide college students with up-to-date academic writing help. In this article, we have listed only a few of them. However, they will be enough to guide you through your entire academic journey, from the very first assignment and up until you write your dissertation. Check them out and use them frequently to make sure that your papers are always top-notch.