Why use Dictionaries?
Using a dictionary will help you:
- understand the learning material and your assignment questions. This is very important because if you misinterpret even one word in an assignment, you risk getting the answer wrong.
- choose the most appropriate words so that your writing is clear, interesting and reads well.
- use words correctly so that you say what you mean and your writing is easy to understand.
- spell words correctly – incorrect spelling may be penalised in assignments, and it certainly gives a bad impression.
- spell words correctly – incorrect spelling may be penalised in assignments, and it certainly gives a bad impression.
- build your vocabulary - looking up a word not only helps you understand and use that word but the process of looking it up helps fix the word in your memory.
Tips:
There are a number of different kinds of dictionaries depending on the word you’re looking up and what you want to know about it.
- Monolingual (one language), or explanatory dictionaries, e.g. English-English dictionaries.
- Bilingual (two languages) dictionaries, e.g. English - Arabic
- Polyglot (more than two languages) dictionaries, e.g. English - Arabic- Malay
- Specialised dictionaries, e.g. dictionaries for specific subjects (such as linguistics), technical terms, abbreviations, idioms, quotations, slang or jargon, etc.
- Thesauruses, i.e. dictionaries of synonyms (words with the same meaning) and antonyms (words with the opposite meaning).
Why use Encyclopedia?
Encyclopedias are a type of reference book that are used to look up information and facts. They can provide a general background on a particular topic, provides definitions, explains various events, and provides illustrations.
Use encyclopedias:
- for summaries
- for lists of further reading
- when starting a project
