Advice for students: Beware of the saurus

Michael Leddy teaches college English and blogs at Orange Crate Art but today he has a post at LifeHack.org; use the link in the title above.

This caught my attention since I had been thinking about the very issue.

From my perspective, the issue is: what use is a thesaurus when we are trying to simplify or clarify our writing?

I think it depends on your level of writing skill or perhaps your understanding of the topic you are writing about…

If you turn to the thesaurus just to spice it up, do not bother. Eschew elegant variation, as Fowler says.

If you use the thesaurus to find the word with just the right tone and subtlety of meaning, then go forth and search.

But if you are tying to simplify your language, just use the dictionary. One of the words used to define the word you started with will probably do the job. Or it will lead you to check its own definition…

Do read the LifeHack article today.