Online Etymology Dictionary

Attorneys are noted for deploying language with precision. Knowing a word's origins may help in this endeavor, by alerting the writer to the subtler shades and tints of meaning that a word's origins may reveal. Although any good print dictionary will contain etymological (word origin) information, here is a link to a worthwhile Online Etymology Dictionary.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Tracking Actual Innocence

One of the best new sites for law students, attorneys and anyone else following the hot topic area of wrongful convictions in criminal law is the Actual Innocence Awareness Database, recently launched by the Tarlton Law Library at the University of Texas School of Law. Keeping up with this subject in a streamlined, savvy way is what the site is all about. Organized by subtopics including forensics/DNA, eyewitness identification, false confessions, jailhouse informants, prosecutorial misconduct, and ineffective counsel, the database is also fully searchable. It is updated daily or as new resources become available, listing citations and links to United States news media (including newspaper articles and television news magazine segments) and to new law journal articles, legislation, and web sites. Links for law review articles are to the first full page of text in PDF. Best of all, the site is RSS-enabled for automatic updates. If this is an area of interest for you, this is a site to know.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Internet Beginner's Guides

I realize that anybody reading this must know something about the Internet or they probably wouldn't have made it to this posting. But if you use your computer mostly to IM and use applications such as Word and think the only thing you need to know about the Internet is Google, this page may be for you. It is filled with links to various guides and tutorials, from simple to more advanced, that will help you get much more out of the Internet. There is so much out there, take advantage of it.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat