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Curricula for the English Composition course usually include review of fundamental language arts essentials such as grammar, usage, and mechanics. The instruction includes various strategies and techniques that help students learn to read for comprehension and write well-crafted papers. Reference and resource materials are vital for English Composition. Even with the invention of computer spell-check and thesaurus, students should still be familiar with the traditional dictionary and how to use to properly use it.

The dictionary contains a lot of information. Learning to use it efficiently can help students find various facts very quickly. In addition to listing word definitions, the dictionary has several features that aid in understanding every aspect of the entry word. The entry word is the word that is being searched for. Entry words are always listed in alphabetically order.

Guide words are the words at the top of each dictionary page. Each top page of the dictionary includes the first and last word that are on the overall page. Guide words are positioned in this location to help you quickly locate the entry word. Once you find your entry word, you will see a breakdown of the word into syllables, which are typically separated by dots. This feature can help with pronunciation.

Phonetic respelling helps to pronounce an entry word. Each word displays its phonetic respelling. In this spelling, accent marks show where a word has a primary and secondary stress. The dictionary usually has a pronunciation key section at the foot of each page (in some cases every other page) that explains the various phonetic symbols. This helps with sounding out the word for correct pronunciation.

Each entry word is labeled as a part of the speech. The part of speech is usually abbreviated (e.g. n., v., adj., adv., etc.), which in long form is noun, verb, adjective, and adverb. This parcel of information is essential because it gives you a clue as to how to properly use the word. One particular word can be used in several different ways. When you understand the part of speech for an entry word, you can appropriately use the word in the context that it is required to be in.

Definitions explain the meaning of a word. If there is more than one definition, each one is usually numbered and examples, sometimes in the form of a sentence, are included to make the distinction between word usages. The etymology refers to the history or origin of a word, and it usually appears in brackets at the end of a definition. Knowing word origins come in handy when studying/reading historical dialogue and transcripts.

Homographs show that some words have the same spelling but different meanings and origins. They are usually distinguished by being listed as separate entries. Each word has a superscript number identifying that the two words, although spelled the same, have two distinct meanings and historical origin. For example, some dictionaries lists sash1 and sash2; the first is a ribbon with its word origin in Arabic, and the second is a frame with its word origin being French.

As you can see, there are many sections to a dictionary and all of them provide significant amount of information for every single word you look up. This information is not only helpful for pronouncing a word or understanding its definition, but it is also useful research information that can be used when writing papers for any class, not just those involving college English. If you are earning an online college degree, you might find it useful to pick a credible online dictionary to use regularly.