GRAMMAR and STYLE
GUIDES
The Elements of Style - Electronic version of William Strunk's 1918, and still relevant, classic.
Handouts on writing skills from Purdue University's On-line Writing Lab - An excellent collection of subject-based "handouts" for all of your writing needs. Covers everything from dealing with writer's block, to organizing and outlining, to the use of commas and semicolons.
Paradigm Online Writing Assistant - A comprehensive text. Includes tips on style and structure in an easy to use hypertext format. The section on writing thesis/support essays is especially relevant to this course.
The Grammar Handbook and Writing Tips from the Writing Center at UIUC - good general resources.
Revising Prose - A short presentation based on work by Richard A. Lanham.
Preparing the Bibliographic Material – This “research guide for students” contains good examples of citation styles (including MLA, Chicago, APA, and CBE styles) for electronically-accessed sources. Although the referencing styles used for this class will be dictated by your selection of target journals, these examples will help you gather the information necessary for electronic-source citations.
DICTIONARIES and
SUCH
Merriam-Webster OnLine Dictionary and Thesaurus - A very nice on-line dictionary. Each definition is accompanied by information about usage, pronunciation, grammar, and etymology, as well as hypertext cross references. Includes a searchable Roget's Thesaurus. The clickable hypertext cross references are especially nice and the search results are very complete.
Acronym Guide - If you don't know what SWPPP (or any other acronym) stands for, this is a reasonable place to look!
A Web of On-line
Dictionaries -
Many more on-line dictionaries.
Units Converter - This site allows you to find and convert various units.
Mathematical Constants - List of and explanations for many, many mathematical constants.
Physical Reference Data - The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) guide to physical constants and much interesting and useful data.
International System of Units (SI) - NIST's comprehensive guide to SI units.
WebElements - A very nice, comprehensive periodic table of the elements.
Scientific Glossaries - Incomplete, but nice, glossaries of geology, chemistry, and other scientific disciplines. Some entries have extended information.
Geologic Time Scale - This is the official GSA version; printable.
GENERAL REFERENCE
MATERIAL and DATABASES
The campus electronic collection (Joyner Library) includes full-text access to many scientific journals and can be accessed from both on and off campus (use your PirateID and password). When using the E-Journal Locator (PirateID and passphrase required), it may help type only one or two keywords (or title words or title letters) in the search box. For some reason, the search engine does not respond well to complete journal titles. If you still have trouble finding a journal, try the “Browse by Title” option. In addition to direct access to journal articles, the library also offers many Electronic Databases (PirateID and passphrase required). The following list includes those I find most helpful:
· GeoRef- Complete reference information for geoscience articles; 1785-present.
· Science Direct - Full-text access to over 800 Elsevier journals.
· Web of Science - Provides access to bibliographic information from the expanded Science Citation Index Expanded, the Social Sciences Citation Index, and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index. Covers over 8,000 peer-reviewed journals.
· Digital Dissertations - Abstracts and full reference information on Ph.D. dissertations published since 1861.
· Books in Print - Database of all books currently in print.
· ProQuest - Database of general newspapers and periodicals, including the New York Times, Scientific American, etc.
Newsroom Navigator - This is the page used by the news staff of the New York Times as a web-browsing starting point. It has some very useful links.
refdesk.com - Arguably,someone once remarked, the web's best reference library.
WRITING ABSTRACTS
Abstracts: A good description of the difference between a descriptive and an informative (the only kind of abstract acceptable in this course) abstract. Also check out these sites for more helpful tips and guidelines for writing abstracts: Writing Abstracts from Colorado State University and Abstracts from Writing Program at Indiana University.
Writing Abstracts/Presentations - A good overview of how to write an abstract for a talk at a professional meeting and how to prepare for and give the talk. Ignore the meeting-specific details and focus on the good, tips and techniques.
How to Have Your Abstract Rejected by Mary-Claire van Leunen and Richard Lipton - I'm sure there are other ways too . .
| Prospectus | Course Schedule | Field Trips | ECU Geological Sciences | ECU |
Date last revised:
08/06/20
http://core.ecu.edu/geology/rigsbyc/rigsby/Sedimentology/2020/writres.html