100 Useful Web Tools for Writers

... from CollegeDegrees.com.

 

[via Librarians' Internet Index]

Taking the stand

I don’t know about you, but I always take the stand with me, because the case might be lost…

"Five Ways to Write Faster"

... courtesy Daily Writing Tips.

Newsroom101.com

Newsroom101.com offers "exercises in grammar, usage and Associated Press style":

These free, self-instructional exercises are based on issues of grammar, usage and AP style that arose at a daily newspaper and in a course in journalism. They are offered here for journalists, professional writers, college students, high school students, and others who are learning or reviewing journalistic language.

On my first visit to the site I clicked on the first exercise and was greeted with a confusing pop-up that asked for an ID. ID? You mean I have to pay?

I then went back to the home page and it took me a while to find -- after scrolling down past the Google ads -- the introduction that explains how the site works.

It is indeed free, but I was too annoyed to go on. My grammer and english don't need no work, anyways.

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks

This is a "funny" blog.

Is The Net Good For Writers?

10 Zen Monkeys asks ten professional writers to answer that question:

Novelist William Burroughs met playwright Samuel Beckett, and after some small talk, Beckett looked directly at Burroughs and said, propitiously, "You're a writer." Burroughs instantly understood that Beckett was welcoming him into a very tiny and exclusive club — that there are only a few writers alive at any one time in human history. Beckett was saying that Burroughs was one of them. Everybody writes. Not everybody is a writer. Or at least, that's what some of us think...

Now the web — and its democratizing impact — has spread for over a decade. Over a billion people can deliver their text to a very broad public. It's a fantastic thing which gives a global voice to dissidents in various regions, makes people less lonely by connecting other people with similar interests and problems, ad infinitum.

But what does it mean for writers and writing? What does it mean for those who specialize in writing well?