Writing

Thu - March 22, 2007

Take an online writing test without having to write

The Texas Education Association has an 'Writing Online Test" at:
TAKS 2003 G7 Writing Online Test

It's geared toward Grade 7 assessment and you need to read passages and select the correct answer to questions.
The first reading begins with:

Mei-Ling wrote this paper for a social studies assignment. She wants you to read the paper and think about how she might improve and correct it. When you finish reading, answer the questions that follow.
The first question follows as an example:

What change, if any, should be made in sentence 2?

	A	Delete the comma after *bed*
	B	Change *starts* to *start*
	C	Change *getting* to *geting*
	D	Make no change

This is definitely something that I'm going to try on my victims, er, students. If you also try it in an ELT environment, let me know how it goes.

And if you back up a bit on their site, you´ll find a whole slew of Interactive Online Versions of tests from the Student Assessment Division. Sweeet.

Posted at 11:46 AM Read More

Tue - January 9, 2007

The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation

http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/cnt_gram.asp
An ad for the book, but the site has valuable features.

Posted at 07:08 AM Read More

Fri - October 7, 2005

SPELL-O-GRAM

http://customsolutionsofmaryland.50megs.com/spellogram.htm
New version includes a built-in, default word list of over 29,000 words (4 to 8 letters). Spell-O-Gram is a word game with a purpose and a twist. You can think of it as flash card practice with scrambled words. One home schooler intends to use this application to drill her students on vocabulary, history, geography, etc. You make the Dictionary, a list of words, from which words show up scrambled in the game. There are five turns to a game and each turn lasts 30, 60 or 90 seconds, selectable by the user; a countdown is displayed to let you know when the end of the turn is near. When you click the "Start Game" button, you see in the Letter Pot field the scrambled letters of a word taken at random from the Dictionary. Your goal is to enter the unscrambled word. Enter your guess into Your Word and click on the "Enter" button (or press the Return key). If your word is the expected word, you are given points and the next scrambled word is displayed. At the end of the turn, the unscrambled word is displayed at the bottom of the window. When the turn is over, click the "Start Turn" button to continue through your five turns. The "End Game" button clears all words and scoring. You get ten points for each word plus one point for each letter in the word. If your Total Points at the end of five turns is in the top ten scores, your name and score are added to the High Scores window. The High Scores window can be opened at any time from the menu bar. You can edit a name in the High Scores window by double-clicking a name, typing a new name, and pressing the "Enter" button. Sound can be turned on/off. A Help window is available. This game was written in REALbasic and is freeware.

Posted at 09:03 PM Read More

Sat - December 11, 2004

Eats, Shoots & Leaves Punctuation Game

http://www.eatsshootsandleaves.com/ESLquiz.html
Based on the book by Lynne Truss
"Eats, Shoots & Leaves - The zero tolerance approach to punctuation

Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Book available at Amazon.co.uk
Also of note, at the above Amazon link, you can also watch the author talking about the book via Real streaming media.

Posted at 03:22 PM Read More

Mon - August 16, 2004

Top Ten Online Editing Mistakes

http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2004/08/15/top_ten_online_editing_mistakes.htm

"Sometimes the question of where to put a comma, how to use a verb or why not to repeat a word can be important, even strategic.
But most of the time the author either missed that day's grammar lesson in elementary school or is too close to the manuscript to make corrections before I see it.
So the following is a list I'll be referring to people *before* they submit anything in writing to anybody (me, agent, publisher, your mom, your boss).

Posted at 12:50 AM Read More

Fri - April 30, 2004

Scholarword: The Writing handbook of the 21st century

http://www.xumbrus.com/product_scholarword_NN4.htm
Free Trial available.
ScholarWord™ is a Multi-Platform, Microsoft® Word integration that helps you overcome the obstacles you may encounter in academic writing. ScholarWord accomplishes this by seamlessly integrating powerful tools and information into your writing environment.

ScholarWord was developed from the ground up to help all students. Your grade, writing ability, and assignment are irrelevant - ScholarWord can help you.

Features & Benefits of Scholarword
Documentation Help

With ScholarWord, you can cite your sources faster and easier than you ever thought possible. ScholarWord formats sources for your Work Cited page, and provides explanations and examples on citing sources in your text.

Writing Help
ScholarWord provides nearly thirty "paper guides" to help you understand, structure, and write any type of assignment. Our paper guides provide rich information on the assignment's Purpose & Objective, Style, Format, and Structure (i.e. Introduction, Body, and Conclusion).

Formatting Tools
ScholarWord's formatting capabilities reach beyond citations. With ScholarWord, you can also develop perfect cover pages in seconds. ScholarWord even remembers your information so you don't have to enter it more than once.

Editing Tools
ScholarWord provides explanations and examples of "common errors" that can easily add up to a full letter grade off your paper.

Other Tools for the Writer
Differentiate & authenticate your paper with academic inserts like our Honor Code and Confidentiality Notice.

Posted at 09:22 AM Read More

Fri - April 16, 2004

Spell Catcher X

http://www.rainmakerinc.com/products/spellcatcherx/
Rainmaker's Spell Catcher X offers global spelling checks, dictionary and thesaurus, writing statistics, shorthand glossaries, and other features, including integration into the standard Spelling Panel. The new version adds the latest version of Proximity Technology's linguistic software and databases, updated English spellings, a new English-language thesaurus, new language plug-ins, and other changes.

Posted at 02:15 PM Read More

Thu - January 29, 2004

The E-Mail ABCs!

Most of today's students grew up with e-mail. Many believe that e-mail is a totally different kind of medium, unfettered by the rules that govern letter writing. Most classroom teachers didn't grow up using e-mail. They believe that e-mail should adhere to the same rules of grammar and style as snail mail. Who's right?

Let's take a look at the ABCs of e-mail etiquette. Included: Twenty-six tips for composing and sending e-mail.
http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech185.shtml

Posted at 06:52 AM Read More

Thu - January 15, 2004

Paradigm Online Writing Assistant

http://www.powa.org/
Paradigm is an interactive, menu-driven, online writer's guide and handbook written in HTML and distributed freely over the WWW. It uses hypertext structure to create a web of links and text frames that you can navigate quickly and easily by clicking your desired choice.

Paradigm is intended to be useful for all writers, from inexperienced to advanced. To get the most from the website, take time to explore its components. Choose a topic that interests you, read the discussion, do an activity, move to another topic. Sense how the topics relate to your own needs and interests. Some writers, for instance, will want to practice Editing, while others will be more interested in Discovering ideas.

Posted at 03:50 PM Read More

Mon - January 12, 2004

Grammarian PRO for Mac OS X

http://linguisoft.com/
Downloadable 'Try before you buy" version is available.
Linguisoft's Grammarian PRO X 1.5.1 is a Mac OS X version of the grammar checking software, which provides grammar and usage checking, spell checking, a dictionary, AutoCorrect and AutoType features, parts of speech, linear sentence diagraming, word frequency, readability statistics, and more. The new version adds Check All Spelling functionality, a new Panther System Input Menu, and minor bug fixes.

• Grammarian PRO X reads through your text and analyzes each sentence for potential spelling and grammar problems.

• Has much more spelling and grammar checking power than the limited checkers in Microsoft Word (™) and Microsoft Office (™).

• Has over 150 built-in spelling and grammar writing rules compared to MS Office's 26 error corrections.

• Checks a large number of homophones--words that sound the same but are spelled differently such as 'accept' for 'except' and 'to' , 'too' and 'two'.

• Reference aid displays parts of speech and linear sentence diagraming, to assist with evaluating the right choice of corrections.

Grammarian PRO X takes full advantage of Mac OS X and supports Carbon and Cocoa applications. Grammarian works in such Mac OS X applications as: Adobe GoLive, AppleWorks, BBEdit, DreamWeaver, Eudora, FileMaker Pro, Mail, Microsoft Office, Tex-Edit Plus, TextEdit, and more.

Posted at 11:36 PM Read More

Fri - November 7, 2003

Acronym Dictionary - "My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4"

Does anyone remember a Reuters article last March titled "British Girl Baffles Teacher with SMS Essay " where a teacher couldn't read a 13 year-old's essay because it was written in 'SMS' speak? [click Read More below to see excerpts]

Well I've noticed that, where I teach, a class or two on 'electronic communication' is almost always needed for adults in intermediate or above. ( Adults at this level are the ones most likely to be open to IM / SMS English experiences. )

But I'm finding more and more of my young learners ( teens ) know more of them than I do.

I'm sorry, I'm not much of a chat room person, but I do know my way around some, and acronyms are equally useful / used in IM, but it's just where I've hung out, there's never been a need for A/S/L... I guess. (Last year we had a Teacher vs. Students contest, and they won with that one. grrr.)

Acronym Dictionary
http://www.aim.com/acronyms.adp?aolp=
Get your message across quickly and save yourself some keystrokes, too. Refer to this handy chart for the most commonly used acronyms among AIM users and before long, you'll be communicating faster than ever with friends, family and colleagues.

Posted at 09:58 AM Read More

Sun - September 28, 2003

Proofreader - Improves students' ability to find mistakes in sentences

Many states' assessments have sections that require students to identify various types of mistakes in a passage (such as the TAKS test, the state assessment in Texas). However, many students aren't able to develop this skill sufficiently through their reading or writing instruction. Proofreader was designed to fill the gap.

http://www.mattsonsoftware.com/proofread.html

Proofreader provides you with over 100 different passages, where students have to find the spelling, punctuation, capitalization or grammatical errors. There are also examples where students have to know how to combine two sentences correctly. Proofreader also includes two special sections where students identify complete and incomplete sentences and find sentences with extraneous information.

Posted at 10:53 PM Read More

Tue - August 19, 2003

The BBC News Style Guide

The BBC, through BBC Training and Development, has released a 92 page Acrobat Reader PDF for free.
Website description / Direct link to the PDF

Posted at 06:15 PM Read More

Sun - August 10, 2003

Inductel Scientific & Technical Dictionaries and Speller

More than 120,000 complete definitionsfrom biology, chemistry, physics, electronics, mechanical design, and computer science.
120,000 word spell check, medical abbreviations and etymologies. But maybe somebody should tell these people that having a spelling error in their definitions screen shot sample is really not a good idea.

http://www.inductel.com/scitech.html

Posted at 12:26 PM Read More

Thu - July 24, 2003

Read Write Think

http://www.readwritethink.org/

Providing educators and students access to the highest practices and resources in reading and language arts instruction.
Lessons, Standards, and Web resources are prominently figured on the left, I just jumped right into the 'Literacy Engagements.' Oohh.

Posted at 05:42 PM Read More

HyperSpell

Online Writing Guide

Guide to Grammar and Writing

Punctuate This!