Suffering from writer's block? Written yourself into a corner? Confused about dangling participles and split infinitives? Happily, there are a number of Web sites that can help.

Paradigm: Online Writing Assistant is an interactive writer's guide available at http://www.idbsu.edu/english/cguilfor/paradigm/. It aims to help all writers, inexperienced to advanced, by offering menus that invite you to click on topics such as "Discovering What to Write" and "Editing Your Writing," or focus on selected types of essay writing, such as informal, thesis/support, argumentative or exploratory.

Purdue University's Online Writing Laboratory (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/purdue/introduction.html) links to more than 120 instructional handouts, covering everything from coping with writing anxiety to writing with computers. Although much of the advice is targeted at writers of term papers, there are also guides for people engaged in business writing, as well as useful information for both teachers and students in ESL programs.

Learning Through Writing at http://www.dal.ca/~oidt/compendium/TableofContents.htm is another good Web site for would-be writers and their teachers. It treats writing as an interdisciplinary skill needed in all fields of study, not just in English classes. The site includes techniques and exercises for incorporating writing assignments in disciplines as diverse as sociology, epidemiology and mathematics. In addition, there is a section on "Encouraging Effective Use of the Library," where instructors will find tips for collaborating with librarians to design course-integrated library assignments.

The UB Libraries' BISON II system offers online access to a variety of reference tools of use to writers through its list of "Reference Sources on the Net." Here you'll find links to Elements of Style (http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/strunk/), as well as Roget's Thesaurus (http://humanities.uchicago.edu/forms_unrest/ROGET.html) and the Merriam Webster Dictionary, which is part of Britannica Online (http://www.eb.com:180/).

While these Web sites offer easy access to a wealth of electronic information, don't overlook a valuable human resource on UB's North Campus. The Writing Place, located in 113 Talbert Hall, is a free tutorial center where students can receive feedback on their writing. While not an editing service, tutors in the Writing Place are available to help with the overall thesis, organization and development of a student's written work and to make suggestions for the improvement of sentence structure, spelling and punctuation.

For help with connecting to the World Wide Web, contact the CIT Help Desk at 645-3542. For more information about the Writing Place, call 645-2394.

-Nancy Schiller and Will Hepfer, University Libraries