Access Restricted to Northwestern Law CommunityESL Reference Materials
The largest and most useful sites are at the top of each section.
LEAF: Legal English and Foundations is a four-week intensive legal English program offered through Northwestern University School of Law that improves international legal professionals’ legal communication and academic skills, with an emphasis on the ability to understand and engage in classroom discussion of legal issues.
LEGAL ENGLISH
Barger's Resources for Legal Writers
The Legal Writing Teaching Assistant, Chicago-Kent College of Law
The Legal Writing Centre - British Columbia
Especially helpful are its seven “Top Enemies of Clarity in Legal Writing”
GENERAL REFERENCE
Guide to Grammar & Writing, Capital Community College
Guide to Grammar and Style, by Jack Lynch, University of Pennsylvania (native-speaker oriented)
Purdue University Online Writing Lab
- ESL Handout
- Sentence Construction (for both ESL and native speakers)
The Writing Center at Rensselaer
Paradigm Online Writing Assistant
William Strunk's Elements of Style (the original)
GRAMMAR
Punctuation, and Spelling Review Materials, Purdue University Online Writing Lab
Grammar Handbook, Writers' Workshop, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The British Council grammar page (avoid the section on prepositions, where American and British English have significant differences): http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/grammar_home_frame.html:
Grammar Slammer: Common Mistakes and Tricky Choices
Superteach English Grammar Tutor
GRAMMAR SUBCATEGORIES
Ordering words and ideas in a sentence
Run-on sentences and comma splices
Voice, active and passive
USAGE
Words often confused or misused
OTHER INSTRUCTION
Punctuation marks other than the comma
Spelling, some rules & suggestions
Thinking logically
PLAGIARISM
Law School Plagiarism Versus Proper Attribution, by the Legal Writing Institute (view pdf version)
“How Not to Plagiarize”, University of Toronto
THESAURUS
Roget’s Thesaurus, 1911 edition updated in 1991 (released to the public domain by MICRA, Inc. and Project Gutenberg)
ESL EXERCISES ONLINE (with answers and explanations):
General
Guide to Grammar & Writing, Capital Community College (find the exercises at the end of each instructional section)
English Page
Grammar
Interactive Review Exercises, Purdue University Online Writing Lab
Utah Valley State College Practice Tests
Grammar Bytes! Exercises (excellent, fun site)
Bluebook of Grammar and Punctuation Tests
The Grammar Doctor Grammar Test
Grammar Quotient Challenge Quiz
Hypergrammar (Grammar and Usage Exercises the University of Ottawa)
University of Northern Iowa - Grammar, Spelling, and Punctuation Quiz
Grammar, Subcategories
Agreement, subject-verb and prounoun-antecedent
Agreement: subject-verb and pronoun-antecedent
Clauses, noun, adjective and adverb clauses
Fragments and run-on sentences
Fragments and run-on sentences
Run-on sentences and comma splices
Run-on sentences and sentence fragments
Run-on sentences and sentence fragments
Usage
Confusing word pairs, eight quizzes (at the bottom of the site)
Its/It's and There/Their/They're
Other Exercises
Capitalization and apostrophes
Punctuation
Vocabulary
Advanced vocabulary quizzes
All of the above were last visited on or around August 9, 2005. Thanks to Lyn Goering of Washburn University School of Law, from whose Web site many of the links here were found.
