Category: Help

“Automatic text analysis” is the default setting

Wordsmyth’s Wordlist Maker is preset for automatic text analysis and automatic word extraction. Type, or copy and paste, any text into the input box. Then click to enter. The Wordlist Maker will extract up to fifteen of the best academic vocabulary words from your text based on the Wordsmyth Vocabulary Inventory (WVI). Then it will automatically create a wordlist for you. It’s just that simple.

Adjust Wordlist Maker settings to tailor the list

When you open the Wordlist Maker settings, you can adjust the options to tailor the wordlist to better meet your needs.

Definitions from

You can choose a lower dictionary level to provide easier definitions that suit the needs of your students.

Parental filter

The default mode for the Wordlist Maker is with the Parental Filter on. You can turn off the parental control here if you don’t feel any need to restrict potentially offensive language with your particular students.

Word selection default settings

• Automatic text analysis:

As mentioned above, the setting for the selection of words for your wordlist is preset for “Automatic text analysis.” If this is unchanged, the system will extract fifteen of the “Top academic vocabulary words” from whatever text you enter into the input box. Alternatively, you may choose the “Top Challenge” setting to create a list of low frequency words according to a standard frequency measure. Note also that you can adjust here the number of words for your wordlist, should you feel that fifteen is too many or too few.

When “Automatic text analysis” is selected, the setting for “Automatic detection” of multiple word expressions is also selected. This means that items consisting of more than one word, such as “tectonic plate” or “continental drift” will be detected as single units in your text. Even if these expressions are not selected to be part of your wordlist through automatic text analysis, they can easily be added by you during customization, as they will appear in the complete list of the items from your text.

• Precise wordlist:

If you have a particular list of words you want to use in activities, choose the “precise wordlist” option. This setting allows you to create a list with precisely the words you type into the input box. Note that when you select “Precise wordlist,” the setting regarding the detection of multiple word expressions changes along with it. Since the “precise wordlist” setting asks the system to include in the wordlist each individual word typed into the box, it will not detect that “Abraham Lincoln” is a single unit. In order to include these multi-word units in your wordlist, you will need to enclose them within quotation marks.

Customize the wordlist

After the list is created, you will get a quick preview. If you are not happy with what you see, you have many options for editing and customizing.

preview options

There are several preview options in the sidebar which you can use to evaluate your wordlist. Seeing example sentences, for instance, can help you decide if the list is showing you the precise meaning that you want for each word. Checking the dictionary level can help you decide if the words are in the right range of difficulty for your students. For your convenience, here also are links to proceed to editing and customization of your list. Of course, if your list looks just right, click to save your wordlist and you’re ready to go! If you’d like to rename your wordlist or attach a description before you go, click on the little marker next to the name at the top.

If you need more space to review your wordlist, you can close the sidebar by clicking the little arrow on the side.

Customization

If you click on “customize definitions and examples” in the sidebar, you will access the customization page. There you will see the words of your list with all their Wordsmyth definitions and example sentences. Note that many words will have multiple senses and multiple parts of speech. The most commonly used definitions will have been pre-selected for your use in activities. Here you can change or edit the definitions and examples, add a note in connection with the word, and more. Mouse over any option icon to find out what you can do there.

• Add/Select words: Add new words that are not found in Wordsmyth dictionaries

No dictionary can cover all the words and phrases that are generated in this ever-changing world, especially those within specialized fields. If you have a specific word not currently found in our dictionary database, you can add it and write your own definition and example sentence.

First, click on “Add/Select words” in the sidebar of the preview page. Whether you’ve created a wordlist using Wordsmyth text analysis or put in your own precise wordlist, the system will now display any words that are not found in our database under the “Add a word” input box. If you’d like to add one of these words to your list, click on the word or type it into the input box. (If the item needs to be capitalized, you will need to type rather than click on the word. Also, since typos and misspellings can occur in any text, you may wish to double check the spelling of your item before adding it to your list. The item could still potentially be in our database.) Next, click on the arrow next to the input box and select “Customize definition and example” at the top of the page. Once on the customization page, choose a part of speech for your word. (You can also attach a note to your word at this point.) Once you’ve chosen a part of speech for your word, add at least one definition. A note can be added at this point too. After the definition is added, the new word can become part of your wordlist.

• Add/Select words: Select words for your wordlist

On the “Add/Select word” page, you can see the complete list of words from your text, including any multiple word expressions that were detected automatically or were enclosed within quotation marks in a precise list. Here you can adjust the word selection for your wordlist by checking or unchecking any of the boxes next to words. In this list, you can also see the level of each word in the Wordsmyth Vocabulary Inventory (WVI), the word’s frequency in school texts—the lower the number, the higher the frequency—and how many times the word occurs in your text. This information may help you judge which words are important to use in your final list.

Smooth connection with activities

After your list is edited and saved, you can use it in any activities from the Wordsmyth Activities page. Connections to the Activities page can be found in the following places as you go through your wordlist-making process.

• in the sidebar on the preview window
• at the top right of any customization page
• in the “more options” dropdown menu on the “My WordLists” page

Share your lists with your students

If you are a teacher, you may be making wordlists for your students to study and learn. Sharing your lists with your students is easy. Just copy and paste the unique sharing URL of any list and send it to your students by email or any other means of communication that your school tools provide.

The sharing URL is available on the preview page right under the wordlist name. Is is also found in the “share” option from the “more options” dropdown menu on the “My WordLists” page.

Below is the URL for the example wordlist used in this guide. It can help you get a feeling for how wordlist sharing works.
https://www.wordsmyth.net/?sl=6f8b6611d9ad
Clicking this URL will lead you to the Activities page with the wordlist preloaded and ready to use in any activities of your choice.

Check out our amazing Wordlist Maker and see how easy it is to make excellent wordlists for your students or for yourself!

With the old activity makers (quizzes and glossaries) the wordlist that was entered was saved with each activity. That made it harder to re-use wordlists. In the new Vocabulary Center, users can create re-usable wordlists that are saved separately from the activities. A list can then be used with any activity– study tools, games, or quizzes.

But what about the old wordlists? Now, with one click, you can extract the wordlists from your old saved activities in the My Activities section (under My Wordsmyth). You will then be able to use the wordlists with all of our new activities in the “Activities” section.

Go to My Activities under My Wordsmyth, where you can see all your old activities saved with a specific wordlist. First, select one or more of the activities. Then look for the magic button on the bottom right.

Click the “Extract WordList” button, and the wordlist will be saved and made immediately available in My WordLists under the My Wordsmyth menu. You can change the name of the wordlist if you wish.

In this example, if you go to My WordLists — under the My Wordsmyth menu — you will see that the wordlist extracted from the old Multiple Choice activity is already available for you to use.

Click on Activities from the (More) Options dropdown menu next to the list. Now you can use the list with all of the new activities.

Saving scores and other activities related information will come soon. Stay tuned!

When you edit an existing word list but didn’t click the “preview and save” button, you will see this button next to your list in “My Word Lists.”

It means that we noticed you made some changes but you didn’t directly confirm the changes. To be cautious, we saved your changes temporarily, just in case. The icon is to remind you to make a decision.

So, if you go to “preview,” you will see your options: discard the changes, or save them.

Clicking on either of the buttons will bring the green check mark back. Your word list will now be good to use with any activities.

The following is a basic formula for citing a particular word’s entry in one of our dictionaries, which you can modify according to whatever style guide you are using.  (Specific examples using APA or MLA follow this introduction.)

1.  Begin with the headword, as Wordsmyth does not list an author or authors.   (The examples below are for the headword “bay,” which is included in all of our dictionaries.) 

2.  Follow the headword with the name of the particular Wordsmyth dictionary you are citing.  The formal names of each of our dictionaries are as follows:

• Wordsmyth Advanced Dictionary
• Wordsmyth Intermediate Dictionary
• Wordsmyth Beginner’s Dictionary
• Wordsmyth Word Explorer Children’s Dictionary
• Wordsmyth Illustrated Learner’s Dictionary (WILD)

3.  Follow with the date of publication.  Dictionary entries can be updated at any time, so, for the publication date, it is best to use the copyright date that appears at the bottom of each of our webpages.

4.  Next, include the URL of the specific page for the dictionary entry.

5.  Give the date you accessed the entry.  We feel it is important to provide the access date, as, again, any page can be revised at any time.  The example below shows that this person accessed the entry for “bay” on August 5, 2019.

Examples of basic formula:

“bay.” Wordsmyth Advanced Dictionary. 2019. https://www.wordsmyth.net/?level=3&ent_l=bay&rid=3500 (5 August, 2019)   

“bay.” Wordsmyth Word Explorer Children’s Dictionary. 2019. https://kids.wordsmyth.net/we/?ent=bay (5 August, 2019)

“bay.”  Wordsmyth Illustrated Learner’s Dictionary (WILD).  2019. https://kids.wordsmyth.net/wild/#/home?entry=bay (5 August, 2019)

APA style

If you are using APA style, the first example above would be modified so that it looks like the following:

bay. (2019). In Wordsmyth Advanced Dictionary. Retrieved August 5, 2019, from
    https://www.wordsmyth.net/?level=3&ent_l=bay&rid=3500

MLA Handbook

If you are using MLA style, the second example above would look like the following. (Note that MLA does not use “https://” in citing URLs.  Also, MLA does not require an access date, but, again, we do recommend including one, as entries can be modified at any time.)

“bay.”  Wordsmyth Word Explorer Children’s Dictionary, www.kids.wordsmyth.net/we/?ent=bay.
     Accessed 5 August, 2019.

Note that if you do not include the access date, you will need to include the date of publication, for which you can use our current copyright year:

“bay.”  Wordsmyth Word Explorer Children’s Dictionary, 2019, www.kids.wordsmyth.net/we/?ent=bay.

One final note…

For in-text citations and citing specific definitions of a headword, please follow the format prescribed by the particular style manual you are using in your writing.  We also suggest that you check to be sure that your style manual hasn’t changed its general guidelines for citing online resources. 

Best wishes from Wordsmyth on your writing project!

Nothing brings home to me just how much mileage I habitually rack up on the information highway like a glance at my browser history. Whether it’s showing me locations I visited “last week,” “yesterday,” or even earlier “today,” the amount and the variety of the terrain covered is impressive. Many of the URLs that pop up in my browser history I’d forgotten ever having visited. Sometimes forgetting is good: here at my work computer, for example, history shows that, a few days ago, what started as a purposeful search on Project Gutenberg for literary uses of an unusual word (“tardigrade”) was diverted by one author’s reference to “hoof-shaped shoes” worn by the precursors of policemen in fifteenth-century Florence. Curiosity must have gotten the better of me, for apparently I made seven stops related to hoof-shaped shoes before getting back on track. Most of the time, however, I wish I hadn’t forgotten where I’d been and had kept more bookmarks and notes. What fruitful trails have I abandoned–or spent precious time rediscovering?

A new feature in Wordsmyth, the dictionary look-up history, is designed to help you remember the paths you’ve taken through the dictionary-thesaurus and the words you’ve investigated for as long as you wish to. Your look-up history keeps track of which words you’ve looked up and when, and makes that information easily accessible to you whenever you visit Wordsmyth.  Here’s how it works. When you view a dictionary entry, as shown below, the last few words you’ve looked up will be visible in a box in the top right of the entry (indicated by the blue arrow). When there are more than five words in your look-up history, this box will display a link, “See more,” (indicated by the lower red arrow), which will take you to the full look-up history page. This page is also accessible from the tab menu My Wordsmyth: Look-up History (See the upper red arrow).

 

On the Look-up history page each word you have looked up is listed in chronological order from newest to oldest. For each word, there is a complete record. n Moving from left to right across the columns, as shown in the image below, you will see 1) the word looked up, 2) the number of times the word was looked up on a given day (#), 3) the date on which it was looked up, 4) the first definition of the word and, in brackets, the number of definitions the word has, if more than one. Finally, 5) the Site column tells you which Wordsmyth site you used (Kids or Main), and, 6) if the Main site was used, the level of the dictionary you used (Beginners, Intermediate, or Advanced).

View alphabetically or by date

To faciliate finding particular words you may have looked up, the look-up history will display alphabetically if you click on the small blue triangle tot he right of the “Word” column heading, and chronologically if you click on the triangle to the right of the “Date” column heading.

When your look-history is extensive, perhaps stretching over a number of pages, you can narrow down the words you see by using the drop down menu “Show words looked up” (a in the image above), choosing to see “all history,” “last 30 days”, last 7 days or 1 day, and clicking “find.” You may also enter a word or a date in the “Find a word or date” search box (b in the image above) and click on “Find” to view the page where a particular word or date appears.

The Look-up History is very alert! It will record not only words you look up using the general search box, but also synonyms, similars, and antonyms you click on, was well as Word Explorer words. However, you can clear your history by clicking on the blue [Clear] link (c). And you can hide the lookup history box in the Display options menu that appears on the entry page.