Selected resources
For academic writers
The selected links and information about online and print resources that follow are intended to help researchers who write in English. If you find other links and information helpful and would like to share them with other academic researcher-writers, please send them to me and I will be pleased to add them here.
Sample online resources
Dictionary.com (monolingual) | https://dictionary.reference.com | An easy-to-use and practical dictionary |
DeepL (multilingual) | https://www.deepl.com/translator | Developed by Linguee, this is one of the best sites for machine translation in that it provides alternatives, grammar information, etc. about items being investigated. Several scholars have recommended the paid premium version because it deletes texts once they have been translated to assure confidentiality. |
WordReference (multilingual) | https://www.wordreference.com | This site encompasses dictionaries for eighteen languages and their various combinations. It offers direct links to dictionaries and allows users to work with various tools. The site also offers language forums and claims to be the world’s largest repository of knowledge and advice about English and several other languages. |
Thesaurus | https://thesaurus.com | This easy-to-use part of a package of online language reference services, including a dictionary and encyclopedia, is Roget’s New Millenium ™ Thesaurus. |
Grammarly.com | https://www.grammarly.com | Contains 250 grammar points, a grammar checker made by professional linguists and, in the paid version, a very good plagiarism checker. A few writers have found it questionable whether the paid version provides substantially better language feedback than the free version. |
EASE guidelines for authors and translators of scientific articles | https://ease.org.uk/ | The European Association of Science Editors updates these guidelines when necessary. They are free, available in a number of languages, and downloadable as a pdf. |
Collocations Dictionary online | www.ozdic.com | This website recommended by former participants offers straightforward access to words usually used together (collocations) and is especially helpful when choosing prepositions. |
Academic Phrasebank | www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/ | An extensive, practical, and easy to use language resource with typical phrases for the different parts of scientific texts. A treasure trove! |
Sample print resources
Full list of resources