writing instructor's Public Library

A link to a document that can be downloaded from the DPKO Intranet.

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unterm.un.org - Preview

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Powerful tool for creating web surveys, and the basic version is FREE. This is a great way to quickly survey others about a topic, to prepare a mailing list, or to register people for an event or course.

www.surveymonkey.com - Preview

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The 'fog index' aims to tell you how 'foggy' a piece of writing is. That is, it aims to tell you how difficult a text is to read. It's based on a math formula that identifies how many words are in a sentence, and how many 'difficult' words (with 3 or more syllables) are used. Since it can't detect poor grammar or other considerations, it isn't perfect. Yet, it could be fun to check out.

www.sigmalist.com/...FogIndex.aspx - Preview

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The 'fog index' aims to tell you how 'foggy' a piece of writing is. That is, it aims to tell you how difficult a text is to read. It's based on a math formula that identifies how many words are in a sentence, and how many 'difficult' words (with 3 or more syllables) are used. Since it can't detect poor grammar or other considerations, it isn't perfect. Yet, it could be fun to check out.

www.nlpmax.com/...FogIndex.aspx - Preview

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To find a synonym, this is a rather traditional thesaurus. Enter a word to find other words with similar meanings.

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This British organization - which was founded in 1979 - has been changing the writing style of governments, legal offices, and international organizations. They have some good ideas worth considering. The most useful part of this website can be found under the links on the top right: 'Examples' and 'Free Guides'.

www.plainenglish.co.uk/ - Preview

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This page provides a basic lesson, and at the bottom of the page, there are two sentence-level exercises to practice.

grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/...parallelism.htm - Preview

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This is an excellent resource for English punctuation rules. There are also short, clear lessons on the grammar that most often confuses native speakers. It's American - but most rules apply in British English and at the UN - except the rule about quotation marks and punctuation. (See the editorial manual - punctuation - for that). All key information is FREE - purchasing a subscription would give you more practice exercises to try.

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Google can be a great resource for grammar and vocabulary. If are questioning how to write a phrase (e.g. you don't know what preposition to use - "on the other hand" or "in the other hand"?), one strategy is to enter the options with quotation marks into Google. If there are many 'hits', your phrase is definitely common, and, depending on the quality of the websites you find, it likely is also correct. Few hits indicate that you might not have it quite right. To get more detailed info, use the 'cached' feature to look at how the expression is used within the page.

www.google.com.hk - Preview

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In one click, you can check over 900 free online dictionaries. The reverse dictionary is also a very useful feature.

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An online reference to the United Nations' report writing standards for numbers, headings, reported speech, punctuation, spelling and more. There's also an online Report Writing course.

69.94.137.26/...numbers-dates-time.htm - Preview

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Free English verb tense tutorial online. Excellent resource for ESL / EFL students and teachers.

www.englishpage.com/...verbtenseintro.html - Preview

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