Digital Resources: One-Stop Writer's Resource

Before you spend another $300 on a set of dictionaries for your high school English classes or replace your outdated cliché dictionary, isn't it time to consider moving your writing reference tools online? Rather than checking out dictionaries and other essential reference books to students and hoping that they will eventually be returned, consider making these important writing resources available 24/7. There's an easy-to-use online reference source that can meet the needs of your students and help them improve their writing skills—and it will fit your tight budget.

For a free trial of Facts On File: Writer's Reference Center, go to http://tinyurl.com/yl94wv7.

Grade For students in grades 8 and above.

Cost The subscription price for school and public libraries is $595 per year and includes simultaneous user access from both on or off campus. For questions about subscriptions or pricing, contact the Facts On File online sales department at 1-800-322-8755 or email them at onlinesales@factsonfile.com.

The Big Picture Facts On File: Writer's Reference Center provides an online writer's toolbox for beginning as well as experienced wordsmiths. Because it offers a complete library of writing reference resources within a single database, users can easily locate many conventional writing tools, such as dictionaries and thesauri, as well as unique writer's resources that provide detailed information on topics such as clichés, proverbs, roots of words, phrases, allusions, and even regionalisms.

An in-depth grammar section offers definitions of grammatical terms, gives examples of word use, and provides meaning and usage of frequently confused words. Through the Writer's Resources section of the database, users can easily locate examples of different styles of writing, examine some of the fundamentals of writing, learn how to write a good essay, and discover new ways to write research papers and reports. A fact sheet covering the database's content is available for downloading at http://tinyurl.com/y8mt9fl.

Look and Feel As with many of the Facts On File databases, the Writer's Reference Center provides an easy-to-use interface with an intuitive design that allows students to quickly locate the information needed. Users may browse for content information listed in the four sections on the Home page—Writer's Reference Shelf, Writer's Resources, Featured Proverbs, and Special Feature: How to Write a Good Essay—or they may begin their search for a specific item by using the simple search box at the center of the page. Students may also search for more specific content by utilizing the Advanced Search link, which opens a new page to allow for multiple search terms. It also offers users the ability to locate specific content within each of the online reference sources available within the database.

Each of the four sections on the home page contains specific resources. Within the Writer's Reference Shelf, users will find both standard and unique writing reference materials such as dictionaries, thesauri, foreign words and phrases, rhyming dictionaries, word and phrase origins, clichés, grammatical terms, British English, American regionalisms, and more. Writer's Resources includes resources on: "The Writing Process," "How to Write a Good Essay," "Writing with Style," "Styles for Various Documents," and more. Research content within the database can be printed, copied, or saved for personal use. Full citations are available in both MLA and Chicago formats.

A writer's Folder is also available for users to add research content that they would like to access at a later time. By creating a personal Folder account using their email address and a password, students can access specific content (such as terms, definitions, grammatical terms, and more) 24/7 for their writing assignments without the need to copy reference book pages to create their own writing notebook tools or locate various print reference volumes in order to check writing style or usage.

How It Works It's no longer necessary to add additional shelves in the library or create a special room to house an expensive print collection of writing resources. Facts On File has taken the best of its print reference sources and compiled them into its Writer's Reference Center. With almost 100,000 definitions from dozens of dictionaries, online encyclopedias, and other Facts On File reference titles, this database allows students to easily access credible, thorough, and reliable writing resources that are available to them 24/7.

Providing more than 150 essays covering areas of grammar, style, research, and more, the Writer's Reference Center offers students, teachers, and librarians the ability to access the tools necessary for students (and adults) to improve their writing skills. Outdated methods of providing print copies of dictionaries for foreign words and phrases, rhyming words, clichés, and slang is not only cumbersome and frustrating for young writers who need access to words, definitions, and ideas, but also very expensive for teachers and librarians to provide for a newly structured writing curriculum.

The Facts On File: Writer's Reference Center offers well over $1,000 worth of the print versions of the publisher's writing and reference content (normally available and accessible to one user at a time in the school library) within this database for access by multiple simultaneous users at a cost that is well below that of the original print materials. A complete list of ebook reference sources available within the database can be found at: http://www.fofweb.com/WRC/Sources.aspx.

A few of the more unusual aspects of the database include the Facts On File Dictionary of American Regionalisms and the Descriptionary. The Dictionary of American Regionalisms provides a list of words or phrases recorded from the writings, conversations, or everyday speech of individuals from around the United States, and brief definitions of those words. This resource provides a wealth of unique vocabulary that can be used to interject authentic-sounding conversations in writing or to help teachers and students with phrases or words found in many works by American writers. Among some of these regionalisms are:

• "drive her ducks to a poor market," meaning to enter into a poor marriage or fall in with a bad crowd. "She had everything going for her, but she drove her ducks to a poor market."

• "hadn't oughter" means shouldn't. "I hadn't oughter go."

The Descriptionary provides a list of subjects (such as Animals or Language) and within each subject term are additional descriptive words, definitions, synonyms, or descriptive context that can be used in writing. For example, under the subject of Animals in the Descriptionary, a list of animals includes the terms that identify the animals by their collective (group) name, by their gender name, and by the name of their young. For example: Animal: fox; Group: skulk; Male: vix; Female: vixen; Young: cub.

The Descriptionary also offers a great way for students to increase their vocabulary or add more authentic terminology to their essays. Jargon, slang, and other subject-unique terms are included under specific subject headings and defined, making this both fun and useful to writers who are looking for ways to broaden their writing appeal.

Students who are interested in British terminology will find it all in the British English section of the Writer's Reference Shelf. Filled with thousands of British words and phrases, this section of the database can easily provide avid readers of British literature with a much better understanding of the language. When this section is coupled with the Foreign Words and Phrases section of the database, students who might otherwise become frustrated when attempting to understand terminology within works of literature or who want to utilize phrases that they have read can quickly locate specific terms and their meanings.

Those searching for ways to review the basics of grammar and composition in preparation for college entrance exams or writing assessments can browse the Grammatical Terms section of the Writer's Reference Shelf for examples of proper sentence structure and common problems found in writing. Also, the Words Often Confused section provides a list of words that are often misused by students (and even professionals).

For teachers and librarians who might be interested in how students conduct their searches within the database (or for others who are just curious about the topics that are most important to users), a Most Viewed link is located at the bottom of the Home page. Users may click this link to discover which reference pages within the database are Most Viewed, what content is Most Commonly Saved, and Most Commonly Emailed content. (To satisfy your curiosity, the Most Viewed page is Developing Your Subject; the Most Commonly Saved reference is Abbreviations; and the Most Commonly Emailed content is Developing Thesis Statements.)

For Students and Teachers Both students and teachers will appreciate the ease of use and the wide variety of resources available within the Writer's Reference Center. This database provides just the right amount of reference content for writers at all levels to easily understand and use. With the availability of personalized Folders to save research content, this database provides students with the ability to access the resources that they feel are most important without the need to re-search topics or terminology each and every time they access the database.

Additionally, for users who would rather use online writing reference tools, such as dictionaries or thesauri, the Writer's Reference Center makes the reference content available on their laptops without sacrificing the quality of the resource content. Students can quickly locate specific terms and definitions, determine the use of a word within a sentence, or find more appropriate sentence structures for lengthy essays within the same online tool.

Teachers and librarians who are looking for ways to provide a wide range of writing reference tools to large numbers of students at the same time will be excited to be able to employ the online resources available within the Writer's Reference Center at a price that is affordable for many school library budgets. In addition, school districts that are searching for writing resources to use with students for special summer writing camps or instructional programs will appreciate that this easy-to-learn database can be used on campus or from home.

Report Card College entrance essays, scholarship essays, writing projects, research papers, and journalism and newspaper writing have all become increasingly more important to today's high school students. However, many students do not have access to the tools needed to help them develop the skills necessary to become articulate, successful writers. As many school districts develop writing centers to assist students in meeting writing requirements, educators understand the importance of providing quality resources to help writers of all abilities. Facts On File: Writer's Reference Center offers exactly what young writers need to become proficient and prolific in the craft, and it deserves an A.