Someone once described the Internet as a "library where someone has scattered all the books on the floor, attached them together with threads and you are in the dark". As a Leaving Cert student or teacher, you have probably heard glowing reports about this wonderful global library, containing endless resources, but then found yourself groping around in the dark in a vain attempt to find some material of direct use to you. Even seasoned surfers experience regular frustration when searching for suitably evaluated information on the web.
This weekly column will attempt to shed some light on the process. It cannot be an exhaustive guide, it is rather a starting point for your research, a "flashlight" which you can employ to find the material you are looking for. Each week, some general resource links will be described and a selection of subject-specific references will be identified and described for your benefit. For a more comprehensive treatment of individual subjects, go to www.LeavingCert.net, where you will find an extensive range of carefully evaluated links, arranged topic by topic for all major subject areas.
If you are taking your first tentative steps onto the World Wide Web, this will, we hope, encourage you to incorporate Internet research into all your future school work. If you are a convert already, the aim is to add value to your online work and reap benefits in your homework, project preparation, revision and exam performance.
General Resources
Encyclopaedia Britannica
www.britannica.com
If you could only consult one website for all your homework and project needs, it would have to be this online version of the world's most famous encyclopaedia. It has a vast collection of articles of the highest quality, a guide to over 125,000 websites - and it's absolutely free. The navigation is intelligent, and the search engine works well.
Project Bartleby
www.bartleby.com/
An astonishing collection of resources are gathered together on this Columbia University website. For a start, its own encyclopaedia, the Columbia Encyclopaedia, is well worth consulting. Also available here are online editions of many plays, novels and poems; reference books such as a dictionary, a thesaurus and books of quotations; and guides to the rules of grammar and writing style. This may be the closest the Internet has yet come to providing a full library on one website.
Funk and Wagnalls encyclopaedia
www.funkandwagnalls.com/
This is another fine online encyclopaedia, with an attractive interface and a nice mix of interesting and useful features. The standard ingredients of encyclopaedia websites - dictionary, thesaurus, atlas - are all here.
Writing Matters
Paradigm
www.powa.org/
This website styles itself as an "online writing assistant", and it's really very good. In particular, click through to the informal, argumentative and exploratory essay sections. Teachers may find it helpful to adapt this material for class.
Five paragraph essay
www.gc.maricopa.edu/English/essay/
A helpful guide to the structuring of an essay, from the website of an Arizona community college. The approach to composition it suggests may seem to be too mechanical, but in truth you'll only be able to acquire your own style once you're aware of these principles.
Guide to grammar and writing
http://ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/
This extensive grammar site contains all the detail you might ever need on the construction of sentences, paragraphs and essays. There's a large section on the principles of composition (including some sample essays), an interactive quiz, and a collection of quotations - from Shakespeare to Steve Martin! - on the craft and passion of writing.
Literature Sites
Victorian Web
http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/victov.html
The Brown University Victorian website contains detailed material on all aspects of the work of Charles Dickens. Social and political history, gender matters and other topics are covered in the treatment of such other notables as Charlotte Bronte and Thomas Hardy.
Guide to Shakespeare
http://tlc.ai.org/shakespe.htm
The Teaching & Learning Center, Indiana, provides a comprehensive guide to the works of William Shakespeare, with a rich list of links to study material on all of his plays. Essays, lesson plans, theatre directions and more are presented in a classified format.
Sparknotes
www.sparknotes.com
There is a large collection of substantial revision notes here on literary texts - as well as, incidentally, on maths, the sciences, economics, and history. For each of the works covered - including the four Shakespeare plays on the new syllabus, Great Expectations, Death of a Salesman, Emily Dickinson's poetry, Keats's Odes, and much more - you get a summary, analysis of characters and themes, study questions, etc.
Pink Monkey
www.pinkmonkey.com
Like Sparknotes, Pink Monkey brings you good revision notes on a large number of works of literature. In fact, it probably covers more of the new syllabus texts than Sparknotes. Registration is free and navigation is simple.
Film Studies
Movie Database
www.imdb.com
The ultimate search site for movies. If you're looking for information on particular films featured on your course (or your own personal favourites) then this is a useful starting point. The external reviews section for each film is a good place to go for articles and film reviews.
All Movie Guide
www.allmovie.com
Great for reading up on the history of the movies, development of genres in film history, biographies and critical articles, glossary of terms, etc.
