Skip to Main Content

French

Online Resources

Key Websites for Studying French

This is a list of key recommended websites for the study of French.

  1. Culture/Communication. Official website of the French Ministry of Culture and Communication
  2. France Diplomatie. Website of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Covers world events, role of France in world politics, Francophone countries, information and advice on visiting France, studying in France, includes link to the French Government Tourist Office.
  3. Gallica: Bibliothèque Numérique. Gallica provides access to public domain material and documents digitized by the Bibliothèque nationale de France but also by partner libraries. Some recently published e-books are also available. This is one of the most important digital libraries with free access.
  4. Larousse Journaux de l’Année. Current affairs archive 1966-2003
  5. Larousse on-line French Dictionaries. Dictionary of 250,000 words and phrases with explanatory notes, verb conjugation tables, proverbs, sayings and idiomatic expressions, synonyms, quotations, cultural and historical notes and more. Audio files and hypertext.

How to reference something you found online

In the Harvard Style

In-Text Referenceused when you are quoting or paraphrasing a source in the body of your essay. It follows an author-date format. The above reference would appear as (Beard, 2006) in-text.

Remember:

In the same way you reference books and journal articles, you need to reference anything you find online. 

You might not be able to find all of the information (e.g. some webpages have no individual author), but take note of the information that's available and put it into your referencing style.

 

For more information on how to reference online resources see our referencing guide.

Online Resources

While it is required to use academic sources provided by the Library such as Books and Journals & Databases for your assignments and research, good quality online resources can make an important difference to your work.

 

In this Online Resources section of our French guide, we’ve collected together information on

  1. The best online resources for French that will help you do well in your studies and
  2. Some advice on how to get the most out of these resources.

Be careful!: Unlike academic resources, general online resources often don’t go through a process to check they are of high quality. So you will need to assess them yourself by following the advice below and reading our Evaluating Information Guide.

Is an online source reliable or is it Fake News?

When you encounter online information you should ask yourself five Questions:  

  1. How recently was the information published / updated? 
  2. Is it relevant to your work?
  3. Do you trust the author?
  4. Is it supported by evidence?
  5. For what reason was the information published?

 

Find out more about Evaluating Information in our Successful Searching Guide.

MU French Departmental Website

The Department of French’s website provides up to date information and news for that department.

For students and staff of the department, it also provides access to key information such as

  1. The Departmental Handbook
  2. Essay Cover Sheets for assignments.
  3. Details of Departmental staff and their areas of interest.

 

 

Maynooth Library Website

When you want to find information that will help you with your academic work, we recommend you start with the MU Library website.

It's your one stop portal to finding out everything about the Library, including:

  • Opening hours
  • Our collections
  • Our Library Catalogue
  • And much more - all available here