Text Morph - The Website That Improves Your Words

Do you tend to use the same words over and over again? Maybe you always say 'walk' when you could use more interesting verbs like strolled, scampered, crept, and skipped. Or maybe you always say 'said' when you could use more interesting verbs such as retorted, scolded, whispered, cried.

When we use more descriptive terms (for instance Golden Retriever versus dog), then we give the reader more information. Our reading becomes more entertaining and by using better words, we can use fewer words. When we use the verb 'whisper' then we don't have to write 'said quielty'. And whispered, because of its definition gives the reader an understanding of something being said quietly, perhaps secretively, perhaps to keep a person concealed. It just is a richer word by far.

A thesaurus is a handy tool for helping to choose better words. But a thesaurus isn't always on hand and you have to be careful with a thesaurus. You have to know what the word means before you can go picking a word to replace it. If you are using walking as a verb, you don't want to choose a word that turns it into a noun.

And remember how earlier I mentioned you might be using a word frequently? It would be helpful to have a program that would point out if you have a word you are using a lot. You might want to take a peek at
TextMorph Jan. 08. This is a website where you can type in your sentences and it will give you options of other words you can use via drop down boxes. It will also make suggestions about whether your sentences are too long or too short and will point out words you may be using too frequently. And the site is free. This is a beta site so it has its shortcomings. A lot of the word choices I was offered aren't improvements and aren't even the same form (like it shows me nouns when it should be a verb that I am choosing). But it is still kind of fun to use and as more people check it out and make suggestions, hopefully the program will get better.

What I found most useful about it was it gave me an idea if my sentences were too long or short and it pointed out the words I was using too often.