Like every successful writer, I love to read. Some of my most prized possessions are book. I can spend hours browsing in books stores, used and new, and can never leave with just the book I went in to buy. My home office walls are lined with floor to ceiling book cases that I built in my shop and they are crammed with books on everything from cooking to astrophysics. My reference shelves are filled with encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauruses, atlases, almanacs, etc. I love those books but when I’m working I find using online reference books much easier because I can have as many of them as I need all open on my desktop in separate windows at the same time. I can simply “Minimize” them until I need them. The World Wide Web has put a plethora of reference sites at our finger tips we simply need to know where to find the best ones. In this Factoid I want to share a few of my favorite general reference sites with you and invite you check out what they have to offer you as a writer, researcher and life-long learner.
Thesauruses abound online but my personals favorites is Thesaurus.Com. It’s actually an interactive thesaurus that you can use for free or you can subscribe to its premium service for a mere $19.95 a year. You can try the premium service for $2.95 for 30 days. Why don’t you give it a test drive while we talk about it? Go to Thesaurus.Com right now and type “Writer” in the search box and then click “search.” The information provided by Thesaurus.Com is based on Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus, 3rd Edition that was published this year. For our search word you will find the following results
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Main Entry: |
writer |
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Part of Speech: |
noun |
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Definition: |
person who composes with language |
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Synonyms: |
author, biographer, columnist, contributor, correspondent, critic, dramatist, editor, essayist, freelancer, ghostwriter, journalist, newspaper person, novelist, person of letters, poet, reporter, screenwriter, scribbler, scribe, scripter, stenographer, stringer, wordsmith |
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Antonyms: |
As you can see many of the words are actually links that you can click on to get addition synonyms and antonyms. If you scroll down the page you’ll find a box called “The Visual Thesaurus.” You can give this tool a test drive for free but its full capabilities are only available to subscribers and the “Visual Thesaurus” is well worth the $19.95 I pay every year for the service. Try it out right now for free. Click on “Writer in the Visual Thesaurus.” Then click on “try it now.” The Visual Thesaurus will open in a new window. Click on “try.” Mouse across any of the dots for the definition of the word associated with that dot. Click on a word and the Visual Thesaurus will shift to a new screen with that word at the center and all its synonyms and antonyms surrounding it. If you click on the “speaker” you will hear the word pronounced via your computers speaker.
There are two versions of the Visual Thesaurus available, the Desktop Version that you can purchase outright for a onetime payment of $39.95 plus shipping and handling and the online version that you can subscribe to for $2.95 per month or $19.95 per years. For anyone with internet connection the online version is the best because, besides being constantly updated, the subscriber has access to the thesaurus in multiple languages, an online magazine that presents the subscriber with interesting articles on various words, word lists, word of the day and many more features that will be of interests to every true Wordsmith. With the online version you are also able to create your own favorite word lists.
Dictionary.Com is my favorite online dictionary service. Like Thesaurus.Com it offers two versions, the free version and the premium subscription version for $19.95 a year. At $19.95 a year the premium service is a bargain but the onscreen advertising doesn’t really bother me so I’ve never felt a need to purchase the premium service here. The free service provides all the information that I ever need.
Another of my favorite online general reference sites is the Acronym Finder. If you have ever needed to know what an unfamiliar acronym meant, this is the site for you. Everyone knows that the acronym NAACP stands for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, but what else if anything does that acronym stands. Let’s find out. Go to Acronym Finder and type in “NAACP” and click on”Find.” Now click on “Search our acronym attic for “NAACP.” As you can see there is only one definition for NAACP but there are thirteen permutations as to how it can be spelled out. The one search that I did just for the fun of it since I write predominantly for the DIY market was on the acronym DIY. I came up with four verified meanings for this acronym and seventeen unverified meanings. Try it out with one of your favorite acronyms and see what you find. You will probably be very surprised.
Quotations always come in handy as a way to add a little color and emphasis to any writing and John Bartlett’s, “Bartlett’s Quotations” has long been the authoritative source that every writer relied upon. Now that famous source is available free online at Bartleby.Com, as well as many other famous books. Along with Bartlett’s Quotations, Simpson Quotations, Columbia Quotations and Respectfully Quotations are also available there to search as well. The Quotation Page is another good online site for finding quotations.
How about cliches? Did you ever want to use a famous cliche but couldn’t remember the complete cliche or who to attribute it to? Then The Cliche Finder is the tool for you. Even if you don’t know a cliche concerning the topic that you are writing about you can most likely find one with the Cliche finder by simply typing the single word in the search box and click find. I did it for the word “cat” and came up with a whole screen full of cliches to choose from. Give it a try. It’s free.
Writing poetry has never been either an interest or a forte of mine but for all you who enjoy writing rhyme but occasionally have trouble finding just the right word help is but a few key strokes away at Write Express® free online rhyming dictionary. There are a myriad of other useful services available at this site, far too many for me to delineate here so explore the site when you have some time to spare.
Info please is the online version of the Information Please Almanac and is often the only place I have to go to find statistic and general information on any subject that I may be writing about. This site has many reference books-an atlas, an encyclopedia, a dictionary, a thesaurus and much more.
This is just a few online reference sites that I have found to be of use to me on an almost daily basis but there are many more to be found with a little surfing and following links offered on the sites I already gave you.
Happy writing.
