101* useful links for copy editors

Here is a selection of Web sites I think can be most useful for editors, whose interest is in checking facts fast rather than researching a subject. Take time to try out the links when you can, and save the ones you like as toolbar buttons (drag the url), shortcuts or favorites. The list comes out of preparations for my 2005-6 American Copy Editors Society presentations "How to Surf Like a Duck While Paddling As Fast As You Can."

Pete Zicari, pzicari@plaind.com The Plain Dealer, April 2006

Indispensable pages

• Gary Pricesí Fast Facts page: www.freepint.com/gary/handbook.htm Also: www.freepint.com/gary/direct.htm ó his version of this page. Dated 2002.
• Indispensable links www.refdesk.com/indispen.html -- Big collection of quick-reference sites on many subjects, maintained by University of California librarians as part of their exhaustive Refdesk site.
• Librarians Index to the Internet lii.org/ -- UC Berkeley. Search engine makes it quick. Threatened with budget cuts.
• Internet archive: www.archive.org/ -- Home of the Wayback Machine
• Al Tompkins' Collection www.ohioaces.org/index_files/2004_files/peterzicari/PDWPoynterPlaces.htm 2004 version of Poynter professor's links. For up-to-date version, get sent to Poynter...
• The Virtual Chase: http://www.virtualchase.com See "research guides" at right of home page.

Experts to watch

• API's MediaCenter www.mediacenter.org. Thoughtful material on new media.
• Mary Ellen Bates www.batesinfo.com/tip.html Search tips of the month are quite valuable.
• Marylaine Block marylaine.com/neatnew.html Research consultant. Has page of "Neat New Stuff."
• Phil Bradley, English consultant: www.philb.com/ Especially: http://www.philb.com/whichengine.htm
• Tara Calishain www.researchbuzz.com
• Bill Dedman powerreporting.com (Another massive collection of links, mostly for reporters, at Columbia U.)
• Gary Price at Search Engine Watch searchenginewatch.com, Resource Shelf www.resourceshelf.com
• Sree Sreenivasan at Poynterwww.poynter.org/column.asp?id=32, his own page: www.sree.net

Look up names

• Start with Pretrieve, a multi-search site: www.pretrieve.com/
• Melissadata's databases:www.melissadata.com/Lookups/index.htm -- Includes people-finder, Zip codes, much more. Business works with mailing lists for marketers.
• Virtual Chase's comprehensive guide: www.virtualchase.com/people/sources_public_records.html
• Search Systems' state-by-state guide: www.searchsystems.net/
• Biography: www.biography.com/search/index.jsp Leans toward those high on the pop index.
• Birthdays: 217.160.240.239/cgi-bin/query.pl ... Says data comes from public records. Rest of site is juvenile humor.
• Bureaucrats firstgov.gov/Contact/Directories.shtml Directories of state officials are readily available from state Web sites, via www.statelocalgov.net/index.cfm
• Businessmen: www.zoominfo.com Other sites use same search engine.
• Churches: churchangel.com -- site has some limitations, but may help. Some states have references on churches. Try Search Systems to find them.
• Charities: Guidestar.com Sign up for more details. Also www.charitynavigator.org/

Dead people

• The National Obituary Archive: www.nationalobituaryarchive.com Commercial site.
• Long-dead people: ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/ searches Social Security records.
• Dead politicians: The political graveyard www.politicalgraveyard.com -- Privately owned

Live politicians

• Congress: thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas2.html
• States: www.ncsl.org Page leads to lists of legislative Web sites, most with directories.
• Counties: www.naco.org/Template.cfm?Section=Find_a_County&Template=/cffiles/counties/usamap.cfm
• Doctors: dbapps.ama-assn.org/aps/amahg.htm -- AMA listing. If you don't know name, try specialty + location.
• Educators In Ohio, www.ode.state.oh.us/data/OEDdistbuild.asp Also www.greatschools.net
• Lawyers: www.martindale.com/xp/Martindale/home.xml
• Property owners: indorgs.virginia.edu/portico/personalproperty.html -- Nationwide list of links to county auditors and similar record-keepers. Not all counties have online records, though.

Prisoners

• Federal: www.bop.gov
• States: The Corrections Connection, www.corrections.com/links/viewlinks.asp?Cat=20

Sex offenders

• Nationwide: www.sexcriminals.com/regs/1041.html

Look up places

• Aerial photos: www.terrafly.com maps.google.com/ maps.ask.com local.live.com/
• CIA Factbook: www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html
• National Geographicís Map Machine: http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/
• Geographic Name Information Server: geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnis/web_query.gnis_web_query_form -- U.S. Geological Survey's definitive database of U.S. place and feature names. Also covers Antarctica.
• How far is it www.indo.com/distance/ -- Indonesia-owned site tells distances as the crow flies.
• Mapquest www.mapquest.com -- Get directions from place to place to figure road mileage. Also Maps.Yahoo.com
• Perry-Casteneda Map Collection -- Large, librarian-organized, historical maps. www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/index.html
• Topozone: www.topozone.com/viewmaps.asp -- Topographic maps of entire U.S., for when elevation is important.

Phone number locations

• In U.S.: www.melissadata.com/Lookups/phonelocation.asp
• Abroad: www.infobel.com/teldir/
• Time: www.worldtimeserver.com

Look up facts

• About.com: Extensive guides on many subjects. NY Times. about.com/
• Business: General facts, numbers: www.businessjournalism.org/ National Center for Business Journalism.
• General: Encyclopedia.com
• Calculators
  • Convert units: www.onlineconversion.com
  • Convert money: www.exchangerate.com/
  • Cost of living adjustments: http://www.newsengin.com/neFreeTools.nsf/CPIcalc
• Encyclopedia: www.encyclopedia.com/ Columbia Desk Encyclopedia, well presented. Also try www.factbites.com/
• Medical encyclopedia: www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/encyclopedia.html
• Lottery numbers: Alllotto.com -- Least annoying of the few sites I've seen. Note the 3 lís
• Newspapers: onlinenewspapers.com
• Trademarks: www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm
• Guinness Book of World Records: www.guinnessworldrecords.com/
• Urban legends - when a story seems too good to be true:
  • Purportal, www.purportal.com, A meta-search.
  • Snopes: biggest site, most fun www.snopes.com
• Look up sports facts
  (Credit: Mike Starkey, Plain Dealer Deputy Sports Editor)
  • Collegiate Directories: www.collegiatedirectories.com
  • Ballparks.com: www.ballparks.com/
  • CBS Sports line: cbs.sportsline.com/
  • Sports Pages: www.sportspages.com/ Rather complicated site has links to major papersí sports coverage, team sites, columnists by name, blogs and more.
  • The Sports Cliché Site sportscliche.com/
  • ESPN espn.go.com/

Look up grammar, style, translations

• AP stylebook: I'm cheating here. I don't use the online version. www.apstylebook.com/
• Collective nouns: www.anapsid.org/pdf/beastlywords.pdf also rinkworks.com/words/collective.shtml
• Foreignword.com www.foreignword.com/ Searches multiple translation engines.
• Yiddish:www.jdstone.org/truth/pages/terms.html
• Latin: www.csbsju.edu/library/internet/latin.html You'd be surprised how often you need it.
• Grammar:grammar.uoregon.edu/toc.html One of many. Others available via dictionary.com (dictionary.reference.com/). Best yet: Use a recognized print reference such as "The Careful Writer" Also: CJR Language Corner: www.cjr.org/tools/lc/
• Thesaurus: www.visualthesaurus.com/index.jsp -- lets you look up four or five words/concepts before trial service cuts you off and you have to close page and surf back to it. Well worth the trouble.
• Massive dictionary search: www.onelook.com/ 993 dictionaries. Accepts definition. (For style, stick to Webster's New World)

Look up quotes, song titles & lyrics

• Bartleby www.bartleby.com: Mother lode of literature and older reference books. Also: www.quotationspage.com/: librarianís collection of smaller sources.
• The Bible: Gospel.com bible.gospelcom.net/bible If it isn't here, is isn't worth quoting. Other religious references: www.beliefnet.com/index/index_10004.html
• Encyclopedia Mythica: www.pantheon.org: Well-supported private site.
• Internet Movie Database imdb.com most popular commercial site.
• Lyrics: (Note that printed lyrics are often different from what singers actually sing).
  • Sing365: www.sing365.com/index.html: current pop music;
  • www.lyrics-of-songs.net : ditto.
  • Folk music: www.mudcat.org: the Digital Tradition.
  • Aria Database: www.aria-database.com

Book titles

• Library of Congress www.loc.gov: Definitive.
• Amazon.com www.amazon.com: Fast. Also try books.google.com

Looking up Web page info

• Betterwhois.com: www.betterwhois.com/ Searches multiple registrars. Whois: http://www.domaintools.com/
• Alexa: www.alexa.com/ Alexa usage info is derived from Alexa subscribers and may not reflect the whole net.

Tips, advice and commentary

• Journalism.net: Search tips www.journalismnet.com/tips/index.htm
• Word Court : Clever page based on Atlantic Monthly columns: www.wordcourt.com/index2.html
• Roy Peter Clark on hype: "When the news or topic is most serious, understate. When the topic is least serious, exaggerate." Maybe the single most annoying writing problem in newspapers ó to readers ó and the hardest to fix. Read more at www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=65648&sid=2
• John McIntyreís blog: blogs.baltimoresun.com/about_language/
• Bill Walshís blog: theslot.blogspot.com/ (There are quite a few other editorsí blogs, including http://newsdesigner.com/blog/ Mark Friesen http://nstockdale.blogspot.com/ Nicole Stockdale)

Worth a look

• ACES ... www.copydesk.org ... Ohio Aces www.ohioaces.org/ ... Editteach.org: www.editteach.org/ (Deb. Gump at Ohio University)
• Alternative search engines
  • Alexa www.alexa.com/
  • Brainboost: www.brainboost.com . Tries to produce answers, besides Web pages. Natural language. Other tools.
  • Factbites, focuses on reference sources: www.factbites.com/ Small index.
  • MSN: search.msn.com
  • Kartoo www.kartoo.com/flash04.php3 -- fascinating graphic approach.
  • Vivisimo vivisimo.com/ -- Easiest to work with.
• Phil Bradleyís list of indexes: www.philb.com/whichengine.htm. Also, www.rbbi.com/links/sengine.htm
• Forthright's Phrontistery: phrontistery.info/ Obscure-English-word lists and language resources.
• The Acronym Finder: www.acronymfinder.com
• Online Etymology Dictionary www.etymonline.com
• Newsmap www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/newsmap.cfm Visual news aggregation. Best of several for clever use of color.
• Today's front pages: www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/
• Romenesko's Medianews at Poynter: www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45
• Topix: www.topix.net/ a good choice among news pages, but there are many. Has cool geographical-forum guide.
• What font is that? www.identifont.com/
• And ...
• The ultimate application of the Internet, applying 8 billion pages ó a significant fraction of all human knowledge ó to the question of whatís for dinner ... Cookin' with Google -- www.researchbuzz.org/cookin_with_google.shtml

Here are most of the other sites cited in the PowerPoint, in no particular order

• www.quotationspage.com/ Calif. librarianís collection.
• http://newzingo.com/ Colorful news aggregator
• http://www.memeorandum.com/ Aggregator of blogs
• http://news.com.com/ CNet tech news
• Newsmap: http://www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/newsmap.cfm
• http://www.specialissues.com/lol/ (Priceís list of lists)
• http://dir.yahoo.com/ Yahoo directories
• http://www.faganfinder.com/ Obsolete but still useful
• http://ez2find.com/ Meta-search
• http://exalead.com Meta-search
• http://www.vivisimo.com Meta-search with clusters
• http://www.a9.com/ Amazonís approach
• http://www.alexa.com/ ditto
• http://www.business.com/ Business & businessmen
• http://www.zoominfo.com/Search/ ditto.
• http://www.pretrieve.com/ Scary people-finder
• http://www.turboscout.com/index.php Compare searches
• http://ranking.thumbshots.com/ Ditto
• http://www.virtualchase.com/quality/checklist_print.html
• http://www.jux2.com/ Compare searches
• http://searchenginewatch.com Useful if geeky
• http://maps.google.com Maps and photos
• http://maps.yahoo.com/ Ditto
• http://maps.a9.com/ Ditto
• http://www.zillow.com/local Aerial photo + house values
• http://www.encyclopedia.com/ Columbia Desk Encyclopedia
• http://www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm

I hope this helps. Pete Zicari