Tools for Writing
Time for some weekend fun. As it turns out, not all of the internet is useless. In this post, I’ll briefly explain four of my favorite websites to use when I’m in a bind. Here goes:
Thesaurus.com
Let’s get the obvious one out of the way first, shall we? I find Thesaurus.com to be most helpful for quickly checking for a better word to use in a particular instance, when the part of my brain that’s supposed to be responsible for keeping track of my vocabulary seems to have gone on vacation without so much as saying goodbye. I particularly like that it offers a large selection of words that are related to the search, color-coded to indicate how relevant each is to the original search. Another great feature is that it generates a different tab for different uses and contexts of the search word. Effective disambiguation is a necessity for tools like this.
Word Hippo
Word Hippo is a more versatile tool than Thesaurus.com. While the site’s description says that it finds synonyms and antonyms of words, it is capable of so much more. For example, Word Hippo can find definitions, example sentences, words containing certain letter sequences, rhymes, verb conjugations, and much more. With all of these functions at your fingertips you’ll be a wordplay expert in no time (a hiphopopotamus? *sorry*).
Reverse Dictionary
Reverse Dictionary is one tool that solves the problem of having to clumsily avoid using a word because you forgot what the word actually is (don’t lie, you’ve done it too.). Forgot what the word for water that falls from the sky is? Reverse Dictionary has you covered. Think there might be a name for that little plastic wrap on the end of your shoelace, but you’ve never heard what it is? Reverse Dictionary has your back. While you could just use Google and more often than not come up with the answer you were looking for, I like using Reverse Dictionary because it will always suggest more than one-hundred different words or phrases that might apply to the search. If you see something you’ve never heard of, or something you thought had no relation whatsoever, click on it! You’ll get an exact definition that could teach you a new word, or a new context to a word you use all the time.
GrammarBook
This one makes grammar fun. Well, maybe not FUN fun, but you get what I mean. It’s a great learning tool for perfecting the finer points of English grammar, and even has games and quizzes that will help you put them into practice. It’s like those educational games for kids except less fun and often harder. Maybe it really isn’t too fun, but if you really want to improve your grammar, this is a great place to start.
These are just four of my favorites. I know that this list is far from exhaustive, and there are plenty more awesome tools out there to help writers out. Feel free to comment some of your favorites, or let me know how wrong I am below!
