Word use in context

Concordance tools

Analyze word use in context with a simple online tool. Resolve your doubts efficiently with a 'concordancer', a simple tool that lets you see words aligned so you can observe their context in natural sentences. This type of display can help you with questions like 'What preposition comes after attend?' or 'How can I use the verb submit when I send my manuscript to the journal?'

• Corpus.byu.edu. The corpora at this site were created by Mark Davies, Professor of Linguistics at Brigham Young University. They have many different uses, including: finding out how native speakers actually speak and write; looking at language variation and change; finding the frequency of words, phrases, and collocates; and designing authentic language teaching materials and resources.
  
  The corpora are used by more than 100,000 people each month (more than 200,000 visits), which makes them perhaps the most widely-used corpora currently available. They also serve as the basis for an increasing number of publications by researchers from throughout the world
  
  
• Try a business letter concordancer. All academics have business correspondence. This very fast website uses a specific corpus of letters. The searches will be relevant when writing cover letters when you submit research papers, proposals or other professional documents. From Aoyama Gakuin University in Japan. To try it, type the word attend in the search box to see how this word is used in context. Then type in the word assist to compare them.

Mathematics in English

Polish mathematician Jerzy Trzeciak organizes this site as a glossary, but it's more than that. Trzeciak exemplifies each word with sentences from technical publications, showing ways to combine words with formulas. You may already know what words like partition, converse or know mean—but this glossary can help you use them effectively in technical discussions.

The Elements of Style

No list of English language resources would be complete without mentioning the very short book by Cornell University professor William Strunk, Jr. First published in 1918 and later edited by Strunk's more famous student, writer E.B. White, today it's affectionately called Strunk and White's Elements of Style.

Much advice about writing in modern English that is repeated in technical manuals derives from this little book. It is the source of widely held preferences for strong verbs and active voice, of certain modern syntax-based punctuation rules and of the special English aesthetic of 'tightness' (the opposite of 'wordiness'), and much more.