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Handbook of an Academic Writer

John Milovich
John Milovich
ScamFighter Expert
Former college customer turned freelance writer, shares insider insights on the essay industry.

Doing a pile of arduous college papers is all in a day's work for students, and I know it for sure. I’m going to introduce this extremely useful list of links that will help you to craft papers with minimum effort and time. Doing tricky assignments won’t take the wind out of your sails if you start using the sources I give you below. They helped me a dozen times, and I’m sure they’ll do the same for you. So, here we go!

The Most Popular Formatting Styles

Being a student, you probably know that the most popular formatting styles are APA, MLA, and Chicago. Whether you are working on the assigned essay, research writing, or a term paper, you’ll need to populate your papers with citations to avoid plagiarism. Moreover, writing a paper in a specific style, you’ll need to delve deeper into all the nuances of formatting and referencing, which is quite confusing if you’ve never faced such a task before or have a poor understanding of all the peculiarities. These links will be of great use if you need detailed information on the basics of formats, inserting tables, figures and citing different sources of information.

APA

Need to craft a research paper according to APA but have no clue on how to jumpstart the process? I’ll help you get to grips with all the peculiarities of this style! EasyBib is a cool website where you’ll find detailed APA guides. Here is a link:

https://www.easybib.com/guides/citation-guides/apa-format/

Another website I trust is Purdue Online Writing Lab. They provide detailed information on how to properly format assignments in APA.

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/general_format.html

MLA

This is the second most popular style after APA. Mainly, it is used in the humanities. So, if you need to complete a literature essay or any other assignment for your foreign language class, check these links:

Chicago

All you need to know about this style, you'll find here: https://www.easybib.com/guides/citation-guides/chicago-turabian/

EasyBib will help you become effective when doing your papers. I like this site because it contains not only detailed guidelines but examples you may check when making references or in-text citations for your paper.

Capitalization

Although capitalization rules are quite simple to remember, they may get mixed when writing the assigned essay. Should you capitalize after a colon? How should you capitalize when you doubt that a word is a proper noun? I’ll give you two links to detailed guides that will save you from the failing grade due to the improperly used capitalization.

https://www.umgc.edu/current-students/learning-resources/writing-center/writing-resources/grammar-help/capitalization.cfm

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/capitalization-rules/

I also advise you to use a helpful tool - Capitalize my title. Even a newbie will have no trouble using it. You'll need just to pick the capitalization style, enter the title and watch it automatically capitalized! The tool is free to use, and this is a big plus!

https://capitalizemytitle.com/

The Secrets of Punctuation

The wrong punctuation may not only confuse the reader but lower your grade, and this isn’t a joke. You shouldn’t underestimate the importance of punctuation in your assignments if you want to not only get a top grade but hear a paean of praise from your tutor. Use the links below to get to grips with all the peculiarities of using commas, colons, dashes, and quotation marks.

Commas

https://www.scribbr.com/language-rules/commas/

Quotation marks

https://www.scribbr.com/language-rules/quotation-marks/

Dashes

https://www.scribbr.com/language-rules/dashes/

Colons

https://www.scribbr.com/language-rules/colons/

“Whose” With Inanimate Objects and Easily Confused Words

You’ve probably faced a pile of pitfalls when working on the assigned college task. How to properly write a specific word? Can I use “whose” with inanimate objects? What are the most confusing words in English? These and many other questions are bothering the minds of thousands of learners, but the solution is nearby. Grammar Monster is a website that will help you find answers to the most frequently asked questions.

Don’t know how to use “whose” in your essay? Here is a link:

https://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/whose_with_inanimate_objects.htm

Need to get to know about the easily confused words? Check this info:

https://www.grammar-monster.com/easily_confused/its_its.htm

The platform contains not only guides but some tests, games, a list of idioms, etc. Essay writing will never go pear-shaped if you delve deeper into the rules of academic writing on Grammar Monster.

Writing Numbers in Your Papers

Need to add some statistics info to your assignment but dunno how to do it right? Scribbr will help you get to know the nuances of writing numbers. Check this link https://www.scribbr.com/academic-writing/numbers/ to become a real pro in applying number formats in your papers.

Undoubtedly, this list of helpful links will be of great use to you when working on one more essay or any other academic assignment! Becoming more proficient in writing is a piece of cake if you use my advice!