19 Strategy: using a Thesaurus
What is a thesaurus and why should you use one?
One of the major factors in writing a paper is to avoid repetition or redundancy. Using the same word or phrase repeatedly in a paper detracts from the flow, voice, and professionalism of the writing. Almost every writing program has a built-in tool to assist, aid, help, support, or contribute in completed any written work. In Google Docs by highlighting the word of choice, ctrl+shift+y will bring up the dictionary, which will provide a definition and synonyms for the word. To use the thesaurus in Word, highlight the word and right-click to bring up the options drop-down menu, and synonyms is an option to show you other options for the word. If you are using a different program aside from the two listed another option is to use your preferred search engine and the term and synonym will provide a list of alternative terms, use the website https://www.thesaurus.com/.
Best Practice
Generally, an uncommon term or phrase should be used no more than 2-3 times in an essay. If you notice this in your writing or in a peer’s writing, notate and suggest the use of a thesaurus to improve the quality of the writing.
Built-In Practice: Using a Thesaurus
Below are 10 terms commonly used in academic courses that would benefit from a thesaurus, please find 3 synonyms per term using one of the thesaurus options.
Evaluate
Analyze
Summarization
Academia
Relegate
Diction
Verbiage
Indenture
Ethos
Relevance