A Dictionary and Thesaurus: a Writer's Most Important Tools

A writer is sitting at his desk trying to work on an article that is due tomorrow. He knows what he wants to say, but he just can not seem to put it into words. He decides to pull out his trusty thesaurus to try to find the right words to convey his message. The writer finds some words that he thinks will fit perfectly into his article, but he is not sure, because they are outside his vocabulary. The writer consults his dictionary to make sure that the words he has found actually describe the meaning he is trying to convey. After consulting his most important tools, the writer completes his article, and is very happy with his finished product, and so is his editor.

A dictionary is a great tool for any writer's arsenal that can expand your vocabulary, and help you find the words that you need when you are writing. You definitely want to pull out your dictionary when you think that a word will fit in your writing, but you are not quite sure about the word's meaning. Also the dictionary can help you see different ways to use a word, or different meanings for the same word. You have to be careful sometimes, because many words have multiple meanings, and readers might be confused about the meaning of the word the writer was trying to use.

A thesaurus is another very important tool for every writer to have on hand when writing. A thesaurus gives synonyms for words, which means that it gives you a choice of multiple different words that have a very similar meaning to the word you looked up. This can be very helpful when you are trying to spice up your writing. Every writer can get stuck in a rut by using the same words in many of their pieces. A thesaurus will combat this by giving you a plethora of different words to use. Without using a thesaurus your writing will become very dull and redundant. With a dictionary and a thesaurus by your side, you should be able to accomplish any task.

Visit the Dictionary of Words and Thesaurus Online. You'll find our Dictionary and Thesaurus Online invaluable.

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Why a Good Children's Dictionary is an Important Learning Tool

If you have a young children, then you will know the benefits of having a good children's dictionary to hand. A good dictionary will contain more than definitions to help young minds grow and learn new things. It needs to highlight how a word sounds, as well as what it means.

For children, this is important because knowing how to pronounce a word will give them more confidence to read out aloud and they will also be more likely to use the word in conversation as well as including it in their writing.

The pronunciation of a word should normally come directly after the word itself, in the dictionary. This pronunciation is written in symbols and whilst some of the symbols look like regular letters in the English alphabet, others do not.

It can take a bit of time getting used to deciphering these codes - you will have seen these yourself: one looks like an upside down e, another looks like an n with an extra long and curvy right-hand side and so on. There are also some symbols that look like normal letters but may have lines or dots above them or below them.

These characters can be a bit daunting when you first see them but if you get a good dictionary, such as Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, then you will see that it has a pronunciation key in the lower right-hand corner of every odd-numbered page. And if that doesn't provide enough information, it contains a multi-page guide to pronunciation that discusses the finer points of pronunciation and how it has evolved
over time.

Some dictionaries have loads of useful and not so useful information in the back of the book. Style guides for punctuation, capitalization, documentation of sources, and forms of address are useful to have. So are definitions of medical and scientific symbols.

In all, have a good children's dictionary at home and make your child feel comfortable and at ease with it. Show them how to look up the definitions of words, help them to sound out and pronounce words they have never used before, and get them accustomed to using the dictionary to refer to when writing stories or doing their homework. Even if they learn 1 new word a week, they will have learn 52 new words at the end of a year. Their vocabulary will be growing and as a direct result of this, their command of the English language will be excellent. All this, from using the dictionary as a tool to learning.

Cheryl Benson writes for SchoolVisionInc.com a website full of resources about schooling, learning and discount school supplies. Find out more about back to school checklists

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Dictionaries Are Important Reference Tools For Writers

It's the little things that often get overlooked.

Writers feel they have to struggle to find the right word, almost as if the struggle itself somehow makes the discovery valid. But help is at hand, and it's a lot closer than you think.

I'm talking about reference books, and dictionaries in particular. No matter how you go about the business of writing, reference materials are always important. They're part of every writer's toolkit, like a carpenter's hammer and saw. And just like a carpenter, a writer can use these tools to construct a solid piece of prose, a short story, a poem, an article, a book or some web copy.

Dictionaries have been part of the writer's palette since Dr. Samuel Johnson created A Dictionary of the English Language way back in the 1750s. Browse the reference section of any library or bookstore and you'll find dictionaries covering a host of topics: languages, medicine, dreams, fictional characters, scrabble, finance, etc. And then there are rhyming dictionaries, multilingual dictionaries, legal dictionaries, dictionaries of symbols, cultural literacy, biblical imagery, philosophy and so on.

Most mainstream dictionaries have online presences these days, so it's possible to access them without even reaching across to your bookcase. There are a few more exotic dictionaries out there, too, such as Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary - a fascinating tongue-in-cheek twist on the concept with some scathing definitions, including:

Wit, n. The salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.

Variations come in all shapes and sizes, with titles like Who's Who in Shakespeare (or Dickens), collections of this or that, and volumes named A Dictionary of the 20th Century, for instance. Of course, those lazy writers among us need only bookmark the site at Dictionary.com and/or Thesaurus.com to have everything at hand. But there's something about flipping through a book and landing on a page -- particularly one with new words on it -- that can't be equalled.

I have a copy of The New International Webster's Comprehensive Dictionary. It's a massive tome, nicely bound with gilt-edged pages. I opened it at random and found this entry:

gyve, n. A fetter for the limbs of prisoners.

Pronounced jive, here's a word I'd never heard before. Will I use it anywhere else? I'm not sure. But it conjures up a bunch of images. Like a group of convicts, gyve talking. It's expanding my vocabulary and giving me story ideas at the same time. And that's just one word on one page.

Forget writer's block. If you own a good dictionary you'll never be stuck for a word. You can even create stories or articles out of thin air just by choosing three words at random from different places in the book. They don't necessarily have to be unfamiliar words, but sometimes putting three unrelated words together can help spark off an idea or two.

I visited Morocco in 2007, and it wasn't until yesterday that I realised what a chafferer I'd been.

Don't know what I mean? Then look it up! That's what dictionaries are for.

Mel McIntyre is a freelance writer and the author of Knock the Socks off Writer's Block available at http://www.lulu.com/content/1001811

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