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Research Tip Tuesday

Hey everyone, if you'd like to see this feature continue, please send some tips in! I haven't been receiving enough to keep it going. I've got one more from Tara for you today, and I'll put up one of my own next week.

"Romance fiction writers or people who write Historical Fiction might benefit from tracing modern works back to their origins. The Online Etymology Dictionary allows writers to type in a word, and then it returns the history for that word. If writers don't see a word they like in the history, they can enter one of the words from the search results, allowing a new set of results to display."

Bio: Tara is a freelance writer and editor. She maintains her own blog Eye Feathers.

Thanks Tara! I use the Etymology Dictionary all the time when I'm trying to create words for my fantasy stories, so it can be really useful to all the fantasy writers out there as well.
on Tuesday, October 13, 2009

7 comments:

  1. kathrynjankowskiOctober 13, 2009 at 12:09 PM

    Great tip, thanks. ;-)

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  2. Deb Salisbury, Magic Seeker and Mantua-MakerOctober 13, 2009 at 12:16 PM

    I love the Online Etymology Dictionary! I highly recommend it.

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  3. ClothDragonOctober 13, 2009 at 12:28 PM

    I sadly don't have any tips. I google things. And if it doesn't work right, I google it again, or follow a link and google a term from that or something else that sounds related. If none of that works, I start searching my extensive array of "research" books I've collected over many years (obviously the solution that lets me stay in my chair comes before the one that makes me stand up).

    I assume most people research like this, so nothing I do is helpful for others. Though I do occasionally worry about Homeland Security or other shadowy government agency starting to track me based on my search terms -- difference between AK47s and M16s anyone? Perhaps an interview with said shadowy government agency to help us avoid that issue could be a future topic?

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  4. Corey SchwartzOctober 13, 2009 at 2:00 PM

    Oh, cool tip. I wish I had a tip for you, but I hardly ever do any research.

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  5. Tricia J. O'BrienOctober 13, 2009 at 2:24 PM

    Oh cool! I'm going to check out that dictionary. Sounds like something I'm gonna love.

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  6. Tara McClendonOctober 13, 2009 at 9:22 PM

    I am a huge fan of the dictionary. Thanks for sharing my tip.

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  7. Michelle D. ArgyleOctober 13, 2009 at 9:42 PM

    I need to check that out! Thanks for this tip. :)

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