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Word Processing Tips
Many of the new word processing programs have features that
automatically format your document and correct your errors. If you find that
your software does a poor job of reading your mind, you can always turn off
these automatic features.
If you are using a spelling tool with students, you may have come
across the problem of an American dictionary telling students that words such
“colour" and “favourite” are spelled incorrectly. You can
correct this problem by installing a Canadian or British English dictionary.
Some software programs also allow you to indicate a language for the text and
then the software automatically uses the appropriate dictionary and thesaurus.
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Search Tool Now Online - http://thesaurusalpha.org
BY THORA GISLASON
Do you need help organizing your literacy resources, files, and Web
information? Help is at hand with the Canadian Literacy
Thesaurus/Thésaurus canadien d’alphabétisation.
What is a literacy thesaurus?
A thesaurus is a list of subject terms in a specific area of knowledge,
intended to be used in the indexing and retrieval of information. This is
different from a “writer’s thesaurus” like Roget’s, which
is a collection of synonyms. Users are led to “preferred” terms
(e.g., “Family violence SEE Domestic violence”). They are also made
aware of related terms (e.g., “Keyboarding SEE ALSO Word processing”)
or terms which are broader or narrower than the one chosen (e.g.,
“Workshops, SEE ALSO Writing workshops”). In this way the user is
made aware of both preferred terms and of related concepts which he or she may
not have been aware of. The aim of a thesaurus, then, is to “pin
down” and define terminology in order to make searching easier and more
efficient.
Another way of describing a thesaurus is as a “controlled
vocabulary”. “Natural language” refers to the terms that people
come up with themselves when doing a search. Because there is such variation in
the terms used, people often fail to find all the information relevant to their
search. For example, one person might enter “First Nations” while
another chooses “Native people” and yet a third “Indigenous
peoples.” Yet all three of them would miss finding material which was
indexed under “Aboriginal peoples.” In an A-Z index consisting of
thesaurus terms, the user would be guided to the preferred term.
What About Search Engines?
Most search engines rely on “natural language” searching as described
above. In addition, they usually search through the entire text of a document,
picking up a term wherever it appears. This leads to many “false
hits” and irrelevant information. For example, a keyword search for
“dinosaurs” on one well-known website retrieved an article on the
steel industry!* Indexing and thesaurus construction remain activities which
must be done by humans in order to be effective.
How Can I Use the Canadian Literacy Thesaurus?
You might think that a thesaurus is used only by libraries and resource centres
to index and catalogue their documents. However, if you have files of
information on literacy, or if you are trying to organize a list of websites by
subject, you might find the Canadian Literacy Thesaurus useful. Now that it is
online you need only visit the website and look up each subject term there. The
Thesaurus is a bilingual tool. It is maintained by the Canadian Literacy
Thesaurus Coalition/ Coalition du thésaurus canadien
d’alphabétisation, a body first formed in 1990. For more
information, see our website or email us at
thesaurusalpha@yahoo.ca.
*User Interface Engineering. “Why On-Site Searching
Stinks” <http://world.std.com/~uieweb/searchar.htm>
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