HOME
- Calendar
- Announcements - Exhibits
Online - Yuku
(about Yuku) - Desire2Learn
- Kerry Magruder | Tutorials: Google Sites -
iWeb -
Composer |
Spelling
and Wordcounts
Poor spelling makes you look less smart than you are! More often than not
it is a sign of carelessness and hasty composition. Please spell-check each
Web Project assignment and all of your discussion board posts, including Starting
Assumptions, Interpretations, Reflections, and responses to other students.
Although there are some problems
with spell-checkers, when used with care they can be very helpful (it's
often hard to proof-read on-screen).
- Windows only
- For Internet Explorer with Windows there is a free spell-checker called
IESpell
which allows you to check your spelling in any webform (including Desire2Learn),
and to run the spellcheck locally on your own computer so that you do
not have the same risk of losing your work.
- Firefox: Spellbound
- Macintosh only
- In any OS X native application, just right-click or control-click on
any highlighted word to lookup a word in the built-in Oxford American
Dictionary and Thesaurus (this is a standard feature of Mac OS X 10.4-5
Tiger/Leopard). Or, open Safari or any other
native application and try this:
- Place the cursor over any word, then hold down the Control and Command
keys and press D (for Dictionary). The definition for your word from
the Oxford Dictionary will appear as a pop-down window.
- As long as you keep holding down the Control and Command keys, you
can move the cursor over other words to see their definitions.
- The pop-down window definitions include a "More" link;
click it to open the Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus in its own window.
- From the Edit menu, there is a submenu for Spelling.
In the Spelling submenu, turn on "Check Spelling as you type."
When you want to do a spellcheck of the document or any selected text,
choose "Spelling..." from the same submenu.
This Spelling submenu is a standard OS feature based on a system-level
spell-checker; no need to download or install anything. It should work
the same in all applications, whether Safari
or Pages or Keynote or whatever.
- Within Safari or any other application, if you want to quickly check
the spelling of a single word, just double-click to select the word,
then control-click (or right-click) the word. (You can also perform
a Google search this way.)
- Word Service,
a free download from Devon
Technologies, works with any native application in OS X. Choose Statistics
from the Services menu and a pane will appear displaying
a count of characters, spaces, words and lines, even for read-only text
such as web pages and received emails. Word Service can do many other
tricks, too, such as: insert the current date; sort lines in a list; convert
between all caps, first caps, and lowercase; convert straight to curly
quotes or vice versa; etc.
- Windows and Mac
- Yuku has a little SpellCheck button you can use
to check the spelling of your posts.
- Google Docs has an online spell checker.
- Spellcheck.net is a great free
web page that will perform a spellcheck of pasted text.
- Motionnet.com
is a great free web page that will perform a word count.
Simply paste text into the left hand text box, then click the "refresh"
link for a word count.
- For online dictionaries and translations, consider Bartleby.com,
Dictionary.com or Google
language Tools, accessed through your web browser.
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” Albert Einstein
