The hardest part about finding grammar and writing guides is finding ones that are actually correct. As you may know, a lot of content on the Internet is severely misinformed and wrong. It is hard to tell which websites were created by genuine experts and institutions, and which were created by people wanting to add their contribution to the net.

After months of research and fact checking, here is a list of some of the best and most genuinely correct grammar and writing guides and resources. These are either from academic institutions with a good reputation, or are websites that are filled with accurate and usable content. The websites and guides have not been rated as they all offer something slightly different and useful.

1. English Practice

http://www.englishpractice.com/

This is a truly great resource for learning the rules of grammar. It starts with the most basic concepts and moves all the way up to advanced rules and exceptions to the rules. It is very easy-to-understand and is perfect for children, younger students, students with gaps in their knowledge and people with English as their second language. It works as both a starting point and a refresher course, it is free, and navigation of the website is fairly easy.

2. Using English - The English Reference Section

http://www.usingenglish.com/

This is a website for people with English as their second language, and it has an English reference section that will help you avoid the most commonly seen errors when it comes to English grammar. If you want to improve your writing skills in general, where you have no specific weakness you want to improve, you should try the English reference section on this website.

3. Guide to Grammar and Writing

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/

This is a website set up by a community college. They have clearly filled it with very accurate information on grammar and writing, but sadly, they have put it on a website that is hard to navigate. If you are looking to improve your writing and grammar in a serious way, then reading through this entire website will totally help you a lot.

4. Essaymama Essay Writing Guide

http://www.essaymama.com/blog/essay-writing-guide/

Essaymama Essay Writing Guide can truly help you improve the quality of your written work. It suggests well-structured and informative tips on writing starting from topic selection and finishing with editing and proofreading. Besides, who knows how to improve writing skills better than people that write essays for a living? They are the ones that come up with the essay writing guide and offer the fruits of their knowledge in this way.

5. Grammar Monster

http://grammar-monster.com/

You may have a few weak spots when it comes to grammar and writing, and may even have a few holes in your current knowledge. This is a website resource that you can pick up and drop in order to fill the holes in your knowledge. It is broken up into sections – so all you need to do is find the concept you are weakest on and read up on it. You do not have to read the entire website or massive articles in order to understand what it is trying to convey – which is what makes it a great reference website.

6. Writer’s Workshop - Writer Resources

http://www.cws.illinois.edu/workshop/writers/

If you want to improve your grammar and writing, then go to the writer’s workshop section on this website and look for writer’s resources. It covers some foundation principles in very simple and easy-to-understand terms. The grammar handbook gives you foundation principles that help you avoid basic errors, which then helps you avoid making repetitive mistakes (which is the sort of thing why you may lose points on writing contests). 

7. Quill Free Learning Tools

http://www.quill.org/

This is a website that offers both free and paid learning services. You can use a few of the tools and improve your writing and grammar skills, or you can take more intensive courses and become a real expert on writing and grammar.

8. Owl - Online Writing Lab

https://owl.english.purdue.edu

This should be your port of call every time you have a grammar, style or formatting question. It is probably the most accurate resource for such things as grammar, style and formatting on the Internet. Their style guides incorporate the differences between various interpretations and they give you links to further resources if you want to do more research.

9. Oxford Dictionaries

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us

Word misuse is a common grammatical error, and this website will help you lower your error rate if you use it correctly. Once you have finished your writing, you need to go over the words that look correct but that may be incorrectly used, such as principal or principle. Pop the word into the dictionary search engine and find out if you have used it correctly.

You can improve your writing skills only by learning

It is pointless trying to rely only on your spelling and grammar checker to improve your writing for two reasons. The first is because no current spelling and grammar checker can understand the content of your paper, which means each checker can only work based on mathematical probabilities that what you just wrote was incorrect.

The second reason is because spelling and grammar checkers cannot say what is “actually” right and wrong grammatically within your text. They can only offer suggestions, and if you do not know the rules of English writing and grammar, then there is no way you can use spelling and grammar checkers with any degree of success.