• Recommended Books
• Researching Sites
• Writing Sites

RESEARCH CORNER (Top)

FireFox "Highlight All" Feature: Use FireFox as your web browser? When you do a "Find" on a page (Apple users press Apple F), you have the option to highlight all occurrences on the page. Highlighted words now have a yellow background, dramatically speeding your research. Enjoy!

Google's Language Translation Tool: Ever find a page you want to read, but it is not in English? Well, Google has a great tool to solve this problem. Simply go to its translation page and paste in the text or the URL, then select the language to translate and click a button! Very fast and very cool.

Dissertation.com: Here's a great way find dissertations on topics you might be interested in.

Google Blog Search: Here's a great way to research any topic that blogs discuss. The goal of Blog Search, according to Google, is to include every blog that publishes a site feed (either RSS or Atom). It is not restricted to Blogger blogs, or blogs from any other service.

Google News Archive - For research, Google's newly announced news archive search can't be beat. Archived articles are available through Time.com, The Guardian, NY Times and news aggregators like Thomson Gale, Factiva, HighBeam Research and LexisNexis.

Market Research: This site offers more than 110,000 market reports from 550 global publishers. They've also got contacts for their research specialists spanning different industry verticals.

Smithsonian Institution: This is a wonderful site for adding a bit of color and historical flavor to your white papers or marketing collateral. The site taps into the world's largest museum complex and research organization.

The World Factbook: This site is a very useful for finding everything you need to know about any country in the world. The site provides updated information on geography, people, government, economy, communications, transportation, military and transnational issues in easy-to-search and readable format.

The Internet Archive WayBack Machine: The WayBack Machine is part of the Internet Archive of over 55 billion web pages archived from 1996 to present. This amazing site features text, audio, moving images, software and education references of nearly all major websites. Beware... it's addictive once you start gong through all the information, but it's an extremely useful research tool.

Acronymfinder.com - With more than 485,000 human-edited entries, Acronym Finder is the world's largest and most comprehensive dictionary of acronyms and abbreviations.

Tekrati.com: The industry analyst reporter offers up-to-date, almost real-time, industry and analyst insight. Very useful for gathering stats and quotes for use in white papers.

HowStuffWorks.com: For writers who need to know in the simplest of terms "how stuff works," this site gives you quick access to a plethora of subjects ranging from computers, PDAs, GPS and everything else under the sun… including the sun! It's a quick reference point for hundreds of topics.

Wikipedia.org: For writers and researchers this site serves as an excellent gateway to define terms and learn about people, technologies and history.

KeepMedia.com: For writers looking for quick access to industry articles that cover 200 major publications, be sure to check out this resource. Portions of articles are provided and you must be a paid subscriber to get the rest. However, you can find information quickly with this resource.

Finding Famous Quotes: If you are looking to add a creative flair to your writing, be sure to check out www.quotationspage.com, a site that allows you to search for famous quotes by author or subject.

Google research: When you are searching for key phrases on Google, use the cached view of a document to see your words highlighted in context. Click here for an example.

Webopedia.com: Need to understand a technical term such as “on-demand computing” or an acronym such as “SATA”? Your first stop should be Webopedia, an excellent encyclopedia of technical knowledge.

ClickZ Stats: Looking for the latest trends in Internet research? ClickZ Stats (formerly CyberAtlas) offers extensive free research ranging from online revenues to global Internet usage. For white papers that need a reference or statistics on anything related to the Internet, ClickZ Stats is a research gold mine.

WRITER’S RESOURCES (Top)

Cliché Finder: This cool little tool allows you to paste all your text into a window and bingo! It will identify all the clichés you have in your writing.

Mindmap Online With Bubble.us: Great and no-cost website allows you to mindmap (map out ideas in little bubbles). Give it a try and send your thanks to our editor later.

Time Management Tip: Our editor, Mike Stelzner, contributed this time management gem: OK, folks. You are going to laugh! My best-ever time management tip came the other day. I decided to walk over to the hub in my office and disconnect my Internet connection. This fully eliminated the temptation to check email, surf the web, etc. It really works!

For Copywriters Only Newsletter: This is a great bi-monthly newsletter packed with tips and advice for freelance copywriters and other business writers. Steve Slaunwhite is the newsletter editor. He is the author of Start & Run a Copywriting Business and The Everything Guide to Writing Copy. Mention that you are a WhitePaperSource Newsletter reader and receive a guide to copywriting pricing.

The Owl at Purdue: This site includes extensive resources for writers, including style guides and a writing lab.

101 Writing Tips from Glasgow: Solid gold writing advice, like "Every sentence should make sense in isolation. Like that one."

The Copywriter Underground - This blog is a great place for writers to get energized. The site includes excellent posts about all things copywriting AND examines marketing angles for copywriters.

CopyBlogger.com: Top blogger Brian Clark has a simply excellent site on writing persuasive content. Any writer will benefit from reading what he has to say. He has almost a cult following. Be sure to check out his excellent site.

OneLook: This reverse dictionary is actually a really cool tool for brainstorming on concepts or phrases. You can also generate a list of words in a specific category.

Quickhand: This guide to teaching yourself how to write high-speed shorthand for business interviewing is a must-have. The Quickhand method for taking notes is a phenomenal time-saver. By learning brief forms of only 35 of the most used words, which make up 40% of all words in normal usage, you can take notes in a quarter of the time it would normally take.

Netlingo.com: If you need to keep up with the latest online lingo, this is a strong resource to bookmark. The site is constantly updated and provides a phenomenal lexicon resource for Internet terms and usage.

Phrases.org.uk: This site boasts over 2000 English language phrases, idioms and sayings and traces their origins. It's a great place to surf for ideas and to make certain your clichés aren't too hackneyed.

Elements of Style Online: The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. available in searchable form online at Bartleby's. This is the definitive book on the English language and its best usage.

101 Best Websites for Writers: Be sure to visit this site for a list of great resources for writers, ranging from discussion boards to professional organizations.

Well-Fed Writer Newsletter: Want to keep your finger on the pulse of the lucrative commercial writing world, while increasing your income as a writer? Check out THE WELL-FED E-PUB, the critically acclaimed monthly newsletter from Peter Bowerman, author of the award winning Well-Fed Writer books. Every issue is jam-packed with tips, tools, strategies and success stories.

Replace your editor with software: We recently read a good review for Stylewriter, a Windows-based software editor that applies more than 50,000 rules to your writing. If you cannot afford an editor, this may be the way to go.

50 excellent writing tools: This great ongoing column by Dr. Roy Peter Clark of the Poynter Institute discusses excellent tips for writing.

Dictionary.com: When Microsoft Word does not recognize a word or its thesaurus is just too rudimentary, consider Dictionary.com, an excellent resource for spelling, word definitions and extensive synonyms.

BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS (Top)

Writing White Papers:As the first book ever written on the topic, Writing White Papers is a practical "how to" guide for any writer, engineer, marketing professional or student. The book is a complete battle plan for every aspect of a white paper project, from concept to writing to marketing. The author is has written nearly 100 white papers for companies such as Microsoft, FedEx, Motorola, Monster and SAP.

White Paper Writer Industry Survey: The findings of the industry's first major study of white paper writers are revealed in our new report titled "White Paper Writer Industry Survey." The report provides pivotal insight into how white papers are written, distributed, structured and billed. Both marketers and writers will find the results extremely useful.

Copywriting That Sells High Tech: This general-purpose writing book is ideal for the marketing communications writer working for a technology company. In it you will find more than 300 pages of valuable content when writing for the Web or crafting written words for any type of marketing materials. The book is loaded with tips on how to craft compelling content. Written by Janice M. King, the book retails for $49.95.

Selling to Big Companies: Check out this newly released book to get a better understanding of the challenges faced by your sales organization. Sales strategist Jill Konrath highly recommends white papers and case studies as critical sales tools in today's hypercompetitive marketplace. Plus, if you're trying to get work in the corporate market, you'll find lots of highly relevant advice.