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A thesaurus is not only be a valuable writing tool; it can also help you to generate ideas when you're brainstorming. That's because a thesaurus helps you to leverage your brain's inherent powers of association. Every word is actually part of a "constellation" of related words, ideas and concepts.
The most unique thesaurus I've ever seen is PlumbDesign's Visual Thesaurus, a dynamic, 3D visual map of related words. It's hard to put into words how cool this Web application is - you have to see it to believe it. Here's how it works: Type a word into the search field at the bottom of the Visual Thesaurus screen, and it appears at the center of the viewing window, with a cluster of words connected to it by lines -- kind of like a 3D mind map. Click on a word, and the map rotates until that word is in the center of the viewing window, with all of the words that are associated to it, radiating out from it. A slider bar at the top of the control panel lets you adjust the font size to suit your eyes. Another "virtual joystick" lets you emphasize specific types of words (nouns vs. verbs, etc.), which appear in boldface to emphasize them.
Visual presentation of information is a powerful tool today, because it can communicate both meaning and context very quickly, in ways that mere words cannot. The Visual Thesaurus is not only a useful tool, but I think it's also a prime example of using visualization techniques in a creative way. |
