Writing a paper can be a frustrating enough experience without having to worry about spelling things correctly. Especially when the paper you're writing has lots of big words, with lots of syllables. And if you're using Microsoft Word to write a paper, you can give up on hoping that old Mr. Gates is going to help you spell words like mitral valve, fibronectin, or fluoroethane.
A simple patch, available to download for a small price, would ensure that you don't hand over a paper with "hemoglobyn" again.-- Overpanic, Jan 05 2004 Stedman's Electronic Medical Dictionary http://www.stedmans.com/Stedman's Electronic Medical Dictionary, v6.0 CD-ROM [duroncrush, Oct 04 2004] ... or just add the words to your existing dictionary and it'll be ok from that point on.-- jonthegeologist, Jan 05 2004 That would be sufficient, if I ever wrote two papers on the same topic. I'm in medical school. I'm going to be writing papers on different medical issues, each complete with their own vocabulary, for at least the next four years. And that doesn't include the dozens of different papers and lab reports I had to write in biology, chemistry, and physics in my undergraduate years.-- Overpanic, Jan 05 2004 see [gromit]'s link. Can you copy someone else's dictionary? Is that possible? If so, you could simply use the dictionary of a former medical student.-- jonthegeologist, Jan 05 2004 Gromit, that's an excellent link. I guess this idea is much baked. I'll be deleting it soon.
But that's an interesting question, [jonthegeologist]. I wonder if it is possible. I'm sure someone will tell us.-- Overpanic, Jan 05 2004 no, I think jon is correct. spell it yourself once and add to your own dictionary. don't use another student's for goodness sake! heaven only knows what they are researching on the quiet.-- po, Jan 05 2004 I've just got a new PC (which is a lovely thing in itself) but that means the custom dictionary I'd built up on the old one has gone, along with plenty of words from the fields of chemistry, geology, analytical science, ecology and microbiology (the joys of interdisciplinary research!).
Each technical field has its own set of jargon but a lot of them overlap. Perhaps one way to do it would be to have a spell checker that could recognise the word fragments which make up technical terminology, eg greek/latin word fragments such as hypo, hyper, macro etc as well as chemical words such as ethyl, methyl, octane, and can then recognise that they can be linked together eg 1-methyl-2-ethyloctane.
While we're on the subject, it would be nice if the dictionary had US and UK English and perhaps included some kind of macro that changes all the s's to z's and took out the a in haemoglobin for when a Brit such as myself is submitting a paper to a US journal.-- hazel, Jan 05 2004 [hazel] Microsoft word does have US and UK english settings...as well as Australian, Canadian, Carribean, Irish, and Jamaican English settings. Plus a few others. Go to "tools --> Language --> Set Language".
As for automatic spell-correcting when translating from UK to US...isn't that what graduate students are for?-- Overpanic, Jan 05 2004 Only thing is, they're comin up with new words all the time, would yyou have to get a patch every time?-- spacecadet, Jan 05 2004 It depends on what your definition of 'yyou' is. Seriously though, I have lost count of the times that I have read 'equipotential earthling' in electrical reports.-- gnomethang, Jan 05 2004 One place I worked had a corporate custom dictionary that you added your own words too. It included the names of all the staff too to prevent errors after one guy called Ashok was renamed Asshole in a publication.-- oneoffdave, Jan 05 2004 Next time you get a brand spankin new computer, try a product like Detto (www.detto.com) or the flashy new Win XP Files and Settings Transfer Wizard -- these programs will remember to copy your personal dictionaries to your new computers.
I think trying to get a freeware scientific graduate student dictionary together is a cool idea. The commercial dictionary is great, but $65? Who has that kind of money?-- lauriekl, Jan 05 2004 small price? do you work for microsoft or somthing?-- HalfwayHebrew, Jan 05 2004 a few years ago I used to work with a girl called wambui mwangei. Spell check used to correct her name to Womb Mange, until she was rightfully added. Never let a letter go out with that phrase in, unless you're a doctor.-- jonthegeologist, Jan 06 2004 hazel: it's worth keeping things like dictionaries and templates in the same place as the rest of your data files, so they get backed up with everything else. Then you can easily restore them when you change computers. jtg: that's the peril of using spell check in email, where it's more likely to create mistakes than catch them. Even with my typing.-- DrCurry, Jan 06 2004 [DrC] you speak much truth. That's what I do now.
[Overpanic] I'm fine with changing the UK/US dictionary thing, but a macro to enable you to change the whole spelling of a document with a single click would be handy. I'm not convinced graduate students can spell at the best of times and especially not if they're doing it in a 'foreign' language!-- hazel, Jan 06 2004 gotta agree with you there Unabubba - sick of changing Zeds to Esses and teaching Microsoft how to spell a certain variety of light metal-- p1stonbroke, Jan 06 2004 and the grammar check doesn't like certain expressions that are perfectly allowable in the UK-- hazel, Jan 06 2004 sorry, I can't resist this one...
should I now worry about getting spam from companies trying to sell me a product to make my .dic bigger?-- Freefall, Jan 06 2004 lol-- DrCurry, Jan 06 2004 //'equipotential earthling' . Or the accounting term "labile" corrected into "labia//The worst one of these that I witnessed involved two ex-colleagues of mine; one of them was a french kid earning some money in the summer whilst studying at Uni in Brighton. The other, however, was a guy who should have known better and now is on a TEFL position in Japan. Our job involves inputs and outputs, some of which are analogue and digital. Sometimes we use test probes. Guess who prepared a report to a customer, one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies on the planet, discussing the findings of Anal Inputs and Anal Probes?.This really happened and I still shudder now.-- gnomethang, Jan 06 2004 Here's a solution; Delete Word. Download a program pack (free) called "Open Office". 10 times better than the crap that comes with windows.-- thelambs, Jan 06 2004 random, halfbakery