LibGuides: Writing Guides: English Language Resources

Note

This page includes links to dictionaries and a thesaurus, as well as resources on theological English.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is an authoritative source for the meaning, history, and pronunciation of words in the English Language. It includes records for over 600,000 words. Help guide to using the OED.
The 20-volume print edition of the OED is available in the reference section: REF PE 1625 .O98 1991.

For quick reference, a free searchable online dictionary and thesaurus. Type in your words in the search box, and then select either dictionary or thesaurus to retrieve results.

Grammar Check is a free online resource that will highlight grammatical issues found in text copied and pasted to its checker.

Roget's Thesaurus
Call Number: REF PE 1591 .B291 1996
A comprehensive print thesaurus.
The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer
Call Number: REF PE 2839 .A518 1997
""Bite the bullet", " get on the stick", "make no bones about it", " take the cake". The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms covers almost 10,000 expressions. Its main fare is, of course, idioms - groups of two or more words that together mean something different from the literal meaning of the individual words." - from publisher

Library of Congress Classification:

PE 1 - PE 3729. Browse books in this range (in the reference and open stacks) for resources on the English language.

Subject Headings:

English Language. Browse through lists of subject headings to find the library's materials on a particular topic. For example, "English Langauge -- Dictionaries" or "English Language -- Grammar".

Handbook of Theological English by Peter Sewell
Call Number: REF PE 1128 .S516 1998
"A guide to the concepts and language used by contemporary theologians, designed for students for whom English is a foreign language. There is an outline and introduction to each topic covered, followed by a reading section, exercises, self-tests and discussion questions." - from the publisher
Dictionary of Theological Terms in Simplified English by Debbie Dodd
Call Number: REF BR 95 .D639 2003
Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Terms by J.S. Purvis
Call Number: REF BR 95 .P985

Reading, Writing, and Discussing at the Graduate Level: A Guidebook for International Students by Rina Kim
Call Number: eBook
"The purpose of this book is to help international students navigate the academic issues they will encounter while attending graduate school in the United States." - from the publisher