7th Grade Language Arts        Ms. Brown

         Using a Thesaurus

A thesaurus is an indispensable tool for a writer. Using a thesaurus well, along with a good dictionary, can greatly improve your writing by enriching your vocabulary and helping you express yourself more subtly and precisely.

What is a thesaurus?

A thesaurus consists of collections of words with similar meanings. You can use a thesaurus to find an a range of synonyms for any word.

Why use a thesaurus?

Whatever kind of writing you do, you should be aiming for these three qualities:

	Precision	(saying exactly what you mean)
	Variety	(avoiding repetition, and using a wide range of vocabulary)
	Elegance	(writing in an attractive way)

Using a thesaurus can help you avoid repetition and find more accurate and attractive ways to say what you want to say, by providing you with alternatives to basic vocabulary.

How do you use a thesaurus?

Different thesauri work in different ways, so you will have to find out how to use your own thesaurus by reading the instructions at the beginning.

This is how you use a traditional thesaurus:

1. Look up the word that you want to find an alternative to in the wordlist or wordfinder. This may be at the beginning or at the end of the book. You will find a list of numbers next to the word.
2. Look up each number in the list until you find the list of words with the meaning you want.
3. Choose a word that you think may be suitable for your needs.
4. Look up the word in your dictionary to make sure that it has exactly the right meaning.

An example

Imagine that you are writing a text about disease, and you find yourself using the word bacteria in almost every sentence. It would be useful to find some alternative words that you could use instead of bacteria, so you look up the word in the wordlist of your thesaurus. You might find two numbered references. When you go to the first reference, you find this list of words:

This list of words relates to the idea of microscopic life-forms. If you go to the second reference, you might find a list like this:

This list is more concerned with the causes of disease. Note that some words will appear in both lists. From these lists, you need to choose appropriate alternatives to bacteria for your essay. Your dictionary will help you decide which words are suitable. Plankton, for example, would not make a good choice, because this refers only to microscopic life which lives in the sea. Germ, microbe and bacillus, however, will probably all be suitable. Now you can make your essay more varied and interesting by using all of these words.