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Stylebooks, grammar guides and more

© Daryl Lease

I love the wealth of information available on the Internet, but I still rely on old-fashioned treeware for my primary reference sources. When I can't remember if the occasion calls for "further" or "farther," or when my brain's experiencing a "404 Not Found" on the spelling of a city's name or something similar, I pick up the AP Stylebook or a dictionary and look it up.

I don't have a duplicate set of reference books at home, however, so when I'm writing in my pj's on my home pc, I sometimes find myself at loss for the right word or the appropriate AP Stylebook dictate. I could skip it and look up it later, or follow the time-honored newspaper tradition of letting a copy editor figure it out later, but more often than not, I now turn to the Net.

There are quite a few reliable grammar and style guides available on the Internet. Below are a few URLs I've found or had passed along to me. If you have suggestions on others, please feel free to post them in the discussion area.

http://bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/journalis...

Here's a helpful collection of sites gathered by Karla Tonella of the University of Iowa. You'll find, among others, links to Fowler's "The King's English," Strunk's "The Elements of Style" (sorry, it's sans E.B. White's touch), and Wired's stylebook.

http://web.missouri.edu/~jschool/missour...

This one's dubbed the "Band-Aid AP Stylebook." You won't find the answers to all the toughies here, but it's a nice overview. The site's creator is Dave Feldman of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

http://www.poynter.org/quickclick/copyed...

From the Poynter Institute, a good list of reference sites, including quite a few geared to our buddies on the copy desk. It wouldn't hurt the rest of us to look, too, you know.

http://www.theslot.com

This site, put together by Bill Walsh of The Washington Post, is also geared to copy editors, but it's a good resource for all writers and editors. Check out the link to "The Curmudgeon's Stylebook."

http://www.webgrammar.com

Here's another helpful site, created by Judy Vorfeld. It contains a comprehensive list of reference materials, including style guides available on the Web, plus grammar tips. For those who want a steady stream of advice on grammar, Webgrammar offers tips by e-mail.