Reprinted with permission from "Writer's Digest"
The Best Websites for Writers
Category: General reference
AwardWeb
URL: dpsinfo.com/awardweb/index.htm
A large collection of literary awards information with an emphasis on science fiction.
Biography.com
URL: www.biography.com
20,000 personalities are listed here. Find out how long they lived, their major achievements and get a short biography.
Encyclopedia Britannica
URL: www.britannica.com
The site had a bumpy beginning, but its content is worth a computer restart or two. You can view any Britannica article free and get links to other relevant Web sites and books.
Encyclopedia.com
URL: www.encyclopedia.com
The 1994 version of the Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia has 14,000 articles and 170,000 links.
FedWorld Information Network
URL: www.fedworld.gov
If the federal government has issued a report or kept a statistic on your chosen topic, you can find it through this site.
History Channel
URL: www.historychannel.com
Enter your search for any topic, any time, and a historical highlight is yours. The site also features a This Day page, with information on what happened on a given day in Wall Street, automotive, Civil War or tech history.
Infomine
URL: infomine.ucr.edu
Infomine was built by more than 30 college librarians and is especially helpful in academic searches.
Old Farmer's Almanac
URL: www.almanac.com
North America's oldest continuously published periodical has the same folksy feel online that it does in print. There's a general store, and plenty of discussion forums.
OneLook Dictionaries
URL: www.onelook.com
Your word search ends here. The site draws from more than 500 dictionaries.
Postage Rates Worldwide
URL: www.geocities.com/wallstreet/exchange/1161/index.htm
Basic information on international rates and links to postal service pages for more information.
WhoWhere?
URL: www.whowhere.lycos.com
The site consistently has up-to-date information, from phone numbers to addresses to e-mail addresses.
Category: Specialized reference
Acronym Finder
URL: www.acronymfinder.com/
Perfect for the Net-inspired barrage of alphabet soup. Has more than 126,000 acronyms with their meanings and allows for reverse lookup by keyword search.
Bibliofind.com
URL: www.bibliofind.com
Choose from more than 9 million used and rare books offered directly from booksellers. Add titles you couldn't find to your personal want list at the site, and Bibliofind will e-mail you if the book becomes available.
ChemFinder.com
URL: chemfinder.com
Useful to science and health writers, this site not only includes data like the boiling point and molecular structure of various chemicals, but also links you to research findings on a chemical's potentially hazardous or carcinogenic effects.
Intellectual Property Law
URL: www.intelproplaw.com
Yeah, you can look up copyrights, trademarks and patents, but there's a lot more to this law site, including a very useful collection of legal reference links. This is a good place to get article ideas and sources.
Jargon File
URL: www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon
A guide to hacker style and pronunciation with definitions.
Journal of the American Medical Association
URL: jama.ama-assn.org/
When you're looking for new article ideas, check out the latest from the American Medical Association. You can also read through back issues.
Rxlist.com
URL: www.rxlist.com
Find out the top 200 prescription drugs last year, and where the drug you're researching ranked among them. Also, get basic information on what illnesses the drug is meant to treat, side effects and dosage.
Speech & Transcript Center
URL: gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/speech.htm
Your starting point for just about any transcript-television and radio programs, Congressional hearings and business executives' speeches.
Web Site Garage
Url:
Check load times and browser compatibility. You can also locate broken links, count outside links and set up a hit counter.
Ziff Davis's ZDNet
URL: www.zdnet.com
More than just a promotional site for Ziff Davis, ZDNet offers tech news, tons of free software downloads, e-mail newsletters of every stripe, tips on computer maintenance, tech support with the Call for Help feature and a comprehensive, searchable database of techno-terms in the ZD Webopedia.
Category: Media news and reference
American Demographics
URL: www.demographics.com
An indispensable resource for any writer tracking trends. The site offers back issues dating to 1995.
Book Marketing Update
URL: www.bookmarket.com/index.html
The site targets self-published authors, the market for John Kremer's twice-monthly newsletter. Even if you're not a subscriber, you have access to his lists of top independent book publishers, top independent booksellers and great self-publishing success stories.
Columbia Journalism Review
URL: www.cjr.org
Access to a good selection of stories from the current issue and full access to archives. The Who Owns What hotlinked list is also a useful reference in the ever-converging media world.
Content Exchange LLC
URL: www.content-exchange.com
If you want to create online editorial content, you've got to come here. At the time of this writing, it's possible for content creators and online venues to list their qualifications and job opportunities for free. There's also a good online writing mailing list. Two Content Exchange principals, Steve Outing and Amy Gahran, author Writer's Digest's ePublishing column, and Outing is on our advisory board.
Experts.com
URL: www.experts.com
A reliable and diverse source of experts, many of whom are outside the academic arena.
Hollywood Creative Directory
URL: www.hcdonline.com
In addition to directories for sale, this company offers a free job board for the entertainment industry and phone numbers for those listed in its creative, agents and managers directories.
LiteraryAgent.Com
URL: www.literaryagent.com
The database has more than 500 agencies and is searchable by agency name, city, state or interests.
MediaCentral
URL: www.mediacentral.com
Common-sense options and easily searched, archived stories make this a favorite place to catch up on media news.
MediaNews
URL: www.poynter.org/medianews
Jim Romenesko keeps tabs on who's in, who's out and what's up at newspapers and magazines around the country. Now affiliated with the Poynter Institute, MediaNews also has a handy list of links to columnists, alternative weeklies and indie publications.
NewsDirectory.com
URL: www.newsd.com
If a magazine or newspaper anywhere in the world offers English-language content, NewsDirectory probably can get you there from one of its more than 16,000 links. Get a feel for a target publication's focus before you query.
Newstream.com
URL: www.newstream.com
An online content provider beefed up to offer keyword searches on news stories. Newstream provides stories, streaming audio, video, graphics and photos free to online journalists with registration.
PubList.com
URL: www.publist.com
A reference for 150,000 publications that includes frequency, e-mail address, address, owner, contact for permissions and other general information.
SeekBOOKS
URL: www.seekbooks.com
Has book reviews and publishing news, an online and radio broadcast called Books Uncovered, an auction section and, oh yeah, a complete online bookstore.
Slot
URL: www.theslot.com
A must-have bookmark for any copy editor. Bill Walsh, business desk copy chief at The Washington Post, maintains a lengthy list of style points not addressed by the AP Stylebook and posts commentary weekly on current style issues in The Curmudgeon's Style Book.