My open-access textbook Corpus Linguistics: A Guide to the Methodology, which took me 15 years to write, was finally published in early 2020, just as the COVID pandemic hit the world.

I had planned to launch the book together with a companion website containing additional resources, study questions, exercises and the like,  but like many colleagues, I was overwhelmed by the sudden COVID-induced task of moving my teaching and my administrative duties online, disrupting all of the comfortable work routines I had adopted to leave time for things like research, family life, and setting up companion websites for textbooks.

As I do not see an end to the pandemic, let alone to the disruptions it has caused, I have decided to launch the website in blog form. On the one hand, this format is more modest than what I had originally planned, as it means that the website will remain perpetually incomplete, growing toward a more complete version of itself post by post whenever I find the time.

On the other hand, this format is more aspirational than I had originally envisioned, as enough time has passed since the publication of the book for me to start thinking about where it might be improved, and this blog will be a place not only for the exercises and study questions I had originally planned, but also (or perhaps, instead) for revisions and additional material to be included in a second edition (which, however, should not be expected for at least another three years, so please keep using the current edition)!

The side bar already contains some useful resources:

• First, of course, a link to the book itself, which you can download free of charge from the publisher’s website as a pdf or buy as a hardcover or softcover at a reasonable price. I do not receive any money from sales, but by buying it, you support Language Science Press, a wonderful, not-for-profit, diamond open-access publisher of linguistics textbooks, monographs and edited volumes (have a look at their impressive catalog of books and download whatever you want here);
• Second, a link to the Online Supplementary Materials which are mentioned throughout the book in the form of four-letter-codes pointing to the data sets used in the case studies. I recommend the GitHub repository, as this contains the most error free and up-to date materials (the version on the OSF is static, and not updated as I discover small errors or inconsistencies).
• Third, speaking of errors, lists of errata (typesetting errors etc.) and corrigenda (my own mistakes). As the distributed proof-readers did a very thorough job, there is not (yet) very much to see, but if you find any errors in the book, please let me know and they will be added!

I want to thank the thousands of you who have downloaded and used the book (almost 8000 downloads from the publisher’s web site alone, and more from the many other repositories containing the book) or who will download it in the future. Please check this blog from time to time!

Berlin, 13th February 2022 (Day 705 of the pandemic)

Anatol Stefanowitsch