Writing Guides
Outside Resources
Spotlight on Grammar and Style
General
- MIT Libraries Research Guide for Literary Study
Reference materials, scholarly databases, OED, wonderful things - MIT Writing and Communications Center
For writing help and a rich supply of resources (click “Resources”). - Guidelines on MLA Citation Form
From the Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab). Follow links to information on citing sources and using correct form for Works Cited lists.* MLA Citations
Linked from the MIT Writing and Communication Center. - Argument and Thesis
Ways to test your thesis statement from Purdue OWL. - What Wikipedia Can Tell Us About the New Media Literacies
An article by Henry Jenkins (CMS) at his blog, “Confessions of an Aca-Fan.” Note that this is Part One; you can also go to Part Two. A good way to think about what Wikipedia is for. - Searchable Bible
Use the King James Version.
Spotlight on Grammar and Style
- Mayfield Manual Usage Glossary
Getting it right. - MIT Libraries Style Manuals and Guides
Resources for writers - H.W. Fowler, The King’s English
An unimpeachable authority from 1908. - After Deadline
The New York Times blog on writing issues.
Mary Rowlandson
Transcendentalism
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Herman Melville
Frederick Douglass
- Schomburg Library/Images of African Americans
- American Visionaries/Frederick Douglass
- Africans in America (PBS)
- ‘I Was Born’: Slave Narratives, Their Status as Autobiography and as Literature," by James Olney
Harriet Beecher Stowe
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin and American Culture
Excellent site, with many images—browse many themes in Stowe’s novel and culture. - American Authors/Stowe
Walt Whitman
- The Classroom Electric
Material on Whitman, Dickinson, and their era. Contains the Whitman Archive and the Dickinson Electronic Archive. - Walt Whitman Archive
- Walt Whitman, American Authors Site
