FutureTense

I’ve never been happy with Roget’s Thesaurus. It doesn’t work the way my brain does for writing. I almost never use one of th options they offer me,yet almost all of the thesaurii use Roget’s as a format. I can’t afford to tear out any more hair. What’s a writer to do?

The thesaurus in Microsoft Word is beyond useless to frustrating. I can send my creative self into severe constipation just by pressing Shift-F7. But there are e-format resources that will work for you.

In electronic format, Wordnet can’t be beat. I’ve been using version 1.7.1. which has a very basic user interface. Who cares. It almost always helps me to find the word I really meant to use. Version 2.0 has just been released and I can’t wait to check it out. Best of all, it’s Open Source software and free.

Sometimes print is the only way to go. I often find the word or concept I needed while browsing for the word I thought I wanted. For those times, I like Reader’s Digest “Family Word Finder” and the Random House “Thesaurus, College Edition.” Both of them have been useful for me.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 12th, 2003 at 11:01 am and is filed under Writer's Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.