Monday
Mar222010
Forget Buying Style Handbooks
Monday, March 22, 2010 by Mike Bertolino
Monday, March 22, 2010
Image via Tongji.eduI found something interesting while Googling "APA webpage reference" for a paper yesterday. Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) is an amazing resource for college students. It has all the resources for formatting American Psychological Association (APA) writings and Modern Language Association (MLA) writings. Props to the folks at Purdue for putting all of this stuff on the internet. It was a big help.
Have you used OWL before? Do you like it? Comment below or connect through Twitter.
Reader Comments (5)
I love OWL it's where I go when I need to check APA or MLA style examples. I was introduced to it in HS and have used it a ton in college.
Woah, they even have stuff for professional writers. Maybe we should look into that for HC? :)
I'm a tutor at my school's writing center and I use it extensively to help my students understand grammar and style. I've even recorded a lecture on how to use the website for my students.
The site is an excellent resource for all sorts of writing questions and aspects of professional writing. I highly recommend using the site map to get an overview of what it covers.
However, this website, while very convenient, cannot completely replace an individualized style book, and more importantly, the personal aspect that comes from your professors and peer tutors at your school's writing center. The OWL website is often very general, and for some more technical majors such as science writing, the website does not adequately explain formal conventions. Additionally, professors and tutors are the best tools for pinpointing things you might not even have thought were concerns and for identifying strengths that could be utilized more.
For a quick, handy reference, the website is great, but nothing beats a tutor or professor.
-A Tutor :)
I've used OWL Purdue for the past few semesters. This really helped out when my professors required the MLA and (in one case) APA styles for term papers.
I heard of this before - awesome :)