Online Thesauri
- Visual Thesaurus
Asking students to look up a word in a print thesaurus is often a pointless
task. Negative attitudes about using a thesaurus change, however, when
students are introduced to a three-dimensional online example. At the
Visual Thesaurus, "you follow a thread of meaning,
creating a spatial map of linguistic relations." Type in a word, and it
appears in the center of the monitor's screen while related words rapidly
move in and around the "key" word. Click on one of those words, and it takes
center stage with some of the former still-relevant words and several new
ones whirling around it.
For younger students, a two-dimensional
representation is also available with the click of a button in the lower
right-hand side of the screen. With this representation, it is easier to "catch" a new word,
and relationships can be examined more fully. Another feature lets the
viewer see how one word has led to another as the previously highlighted words
appear on the screen to the left of the latest key word. It is a good idea
to have several words in mind when you show this site to students. After a
brief demonstration, they will want to control the mouse themselves.
- Roget's Internet Thesaurus
This very simple thesaurus lets the reader type in a word and learn what it
really means. Try looking up concinnity.
- Thesauri Online
The American Society of Indexers created this site that links readers to
other thesauri such as the Astronomy Thesaurus, the CALL Dictionary and
Thesaurus (of military terminology), and the NASA
Thesaurus.
- The Library of Congress Thesauri
This site explains how government workers always have just the right word at
their fingertips. A look at "artificial satellites" will help you decide whether
to call a specific one by such narrow terms such as "earth stations" or "orbiting
astronomical observatories" or to choose a broader term such as "spacecraft"-- or perhaps really
go wild and use the related term "astronautics." Students can have a great
time at this site making sentences that will be out of this world.
Reading Online, www.readingonline.org
Posted July 1999
© 1999-2000 International Reading Association, Inc. ISSN 1096-1232