Rutledge

Research Tools in Microsoft Word

Click the Tools menu and Research.

The Research Task pane will open to the right of your document.

(In Word 2007 you click the Review Ribbon and Research.)

Here is an example of how you might use this versus just using Spellcheck.

Let’s say you want to use a word, and you are not quite sure that it encapsulates your meaning.

You can open the Research Task pane and type in the word you want to use. In this instance let’s use encapsulate and assume that you are not sure how it is spelled.

Note that spelling alternatives are suggested.

When you click on encapsulate you get the definition from  Encarta and synonyms from the Word Thesaurus.

If an area is compressed, click the + sign to expand it.   

Other Search Choices

Click the arrow to the right of All Reference Books to see other search categories. An indented list of searchable resources will show under each category. Either select an entire category or an individual resource that's under a category.

If you are not connected to the Internet, you can only access the thesaurus and the dictionary installed with Office. If you are connected and use Internet Explorer, when you click a link in the Research pane, a web window will open and the Research pane will be displayed to the left of the website.