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Adopting Open Textbooks: Open Educational Resources

Titles in OER Repositories

Information Literacy

Multi-user Ebooks the Library can Buy


(links go to Amazon for a description of the book)


The Routledge Student Guide to English Usage: A Guide to Academic Writing for Students 
The first part of the book covers approximately 4000 carefully selected words, focusing on groups of confusable words that sound alike, look alike or are frequently mixed up. The authors help to solve academic dilemmas, such as correct usage of the apostrophe and the crucial difference between infer and imply. Examples of good usage are drawn from corpora such as the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English


Just Write: an Easy to use Guide to Writing at University 
This is a basic, short guide that helps students make the transition to writing at college or university as simple as possible, providing them with the basic skills they need to write in an effective academic style. The authors draw on their own work to demystify the academic writing process that many students, in all disciplines, find daunting. By understanding exactly what obstacles students face when approaching writing at university they offer proven advice that is simple, uncomplicated and easily achievable. Clear and accessible, this book gives students step-by-step advice to overcome the main hurdles. It covers: overcoming apprehension – then making sure you know exactly what you are supposed to do planning reading – managing your time and keeping your focus, helping you get the material that needs to be in your work getting organised – you are ready to write the first draft, take a break and finally come back and edit it. Jargon-free, the book helps students at all levels of higher education to write clearly and persuasively, expressing both opinions and findings.


Writing Academic Papers : A Resource Manual for Beginners in Higher-Learning Institutions and Colleges 
Writing Academic Papers is a book for undergraduate students in higher learning institutions and colleges designed to help them accomplish their academic paper assignments. This book comprises most materials necessary for students to write convincing and persuasive academic papers. It defines an academic paper, explains its importance in higher education, and outlines the necessary steps in writing a well-presented, well-argued, and well-documented academic paper. This book also discusses in detail and with concrete examples the question of plagiarism, the most serious offense in academic writing, including the effects of plagiarism in the production of new knowledge and the consequences to those caught plagiarizing. This book is an invaluable resource for all beginning students striving to achieve ethical and excellent writing performances.


Writing That Makes Sense, 2nd Edition : Critical Thinking in College Composition 
The second edition of Writing That Makes Sense takes students through the fundamentals of the writing process and explores the basic steps of critical thinking. Drawing upon over twenty years of experience teaching college composition and professional writing, David S. Hogsette combines relevant writing pedagogy and practical assignments with the basics of critical thinking to provide students with step-by-step guides for successful academic writing in a variety of rhetorical modes. New in the second edition: -Expanded discussion of how to write effective thesis statements for informative, persuasive, evaluative, and synthesis essays, including helpful thesis statement templates. -Extensive templates introducing students to conventions of academic discourse, including integrating outside sources, interacting with other writers'ideas, and dialoguing with multiple perspectives. -Examples of academic writing from different disciplines illustrating essay titles, abstracts, thesis statements, introductions, conclusions, and voice. -Expanded discussion of voice in academic writing, including an exploration of active and passive voice constructions in different disciplines and tips on how to edit for clarity. -A new chapter on writing in the disciplines. -Updated sample student papers. -New readings with examples of opposing views and multiple perspectives


Students Must Write : A Guide to Better Writing in Coursework and Examinations (links to amazon for description)
The third edition of this well-respected guide will help students of all subjects to write more clearly and more effectively, with valuable advice on how to: make good notes find information, cite sources and list references write better coursework assignments achieve higher grades in tests and examinations prepare a well-organised dissertation, long essay, term paper, project report or thesis write effective letters and applications. Written by an esteemed author with many years of experience of helping students improve key writing skills, this text also includes straightforward guidance on word choice and the new challenges and opportunities afforded by the use of computers. Exercises are also provided for students to put the theories into practice, either individually or in group work.


Essay Writing: a Student's Guide 
Essay Writing is a student guide with a mission: to enable students to write better essays and get the grades they deserve by demystifying the essay-writing process. MunLing Shields places essay writing within the larger university experience for students. In a clear and easy to understand way the author guides the reader through the process of writing successful university essays by looking at essay writing in the context of academic communication, academic culture and different learning styles and approaches. This book: Helps students study more independently and learn more meaningfully to write better essays Offers invaluable insights into the way tutors see essays Explains why essays are set, and how to understand the rationale behind them Demonstrates how best to approach answering the question. This highly accessible book offers practical, in-depth guidance on each of the stages of the essay writing process - planning, drafting and editing - and relates them to the important sub-skills of information-gathering, reading academic texts, how to get the most out of lectures, referencing and citations, and fluency and appropriateness of style and language.