Writing is a necessary skill for any learned person to have. No matter what kind of profession you are in, you have to write something in a professional capacity. It may take the form of correspondence, reports, proposals, or even a simple memo.
Good writing skills improve your communication. People with effective communication can present well-structured arguments, and defend themselves effectively. One of the most important aspects of good writing is vocabulary. The larger your vocabulary, the better you can articulate.
Learning new words and effectively using them is not so easy. However, with the help of paraphrasing tools, the process can be eased. So, now, we are going to check out how to improve your vocabulary with the help of paraphrasing tools.
1. Choose a Good Tool to Start With
Since the guide is about using paraphrasing tools to improve vocabulary, naturally, we have to start with the tools. To ensure that the learning experience is good, we have to choose a competent paraphrasing tool first.
To choose the best tool, simply go online, and search for them. Most queries will return a list of the best tools. You can choose any of them as they are mostly similar in form and function.
However, here are a few things that you need to look out for that will help you select the best paraphrasing tool.
- Is the tool free?
- What is the word limit?
- Are there multiple paraphrasing modes?
- Is the UI simple to operate?
- Is the output of the paraphraser grammatically correct?
These are a few questions that you should seek the answers to before selecting a tool. Some of these things are subjective, such as the UI and word limit. It is possible that you do not mind a lower word limit, and have no difficulty navigating difficult UIs, however, you should never compromise on the output.
2. Make yourself familiar with the modes to use the right one for better synonymizing
Most top-of-the-line paraphrasing tools have multiple paraphrasing modes. Most tools have around four modes. The thing about modes is that they do different kinds of paraphrasing from each other.
Each mode is designed for a specific purpose. For example, a common mode in most tools is one that makes the content easier to read. The paraphrase that we get from such modes utilizes simpler synonyms that are commonly used in day-to-day life. As such the output is easier to read. This kind of mode is great for learning simpler alternatives to difficult words.
Then there are modes that specifically deal with tones. For example, many tools feature modes to make the text sound more formal. This mode is useful for learning words that are used in official and professional settings.
So, in this way, selecting the right mode of paraphrasing is necessary to learn and improve the relevant vocabulary.
3. Paraphrase Your Own Work to See Contextual Applications of Words
To make the most out of a paraphraser, you can run your own content through it. After all, the best kind of learning is done when your own work is involved.
If you are running your work through a paraphraser, try it with different modes. Each mode will give you a different output. This way you will be able to see different words every time.
Let’s showcase this with an example. We will use some text from this published post, and run it through multiple modes of a paraphraser.
As you can see, the output is different for both modes. There are multiple changes, such as changes to sentence structure, and synonym exchange. Some examples you can see are that the word “Exact” was changed to “Accurate”, and “Vital” was changed to “Important.”
So, just from this, we have learned that “Exact” and “Accurate” mean the same thing and that “Vital” and “Important.” Since this was just a small passage, we only learned a few words. But with bulkier content, the potential to learn more words and improve the vocabulary is much higher.
4. Check Out the Synonym Editing to Learn More Words (if applicable)
This feature is a little less common, but it is still found in most good paraphrasers. Basically, when you paraphrase some text with a paraphrasing tool, the output you get can be edited.
This is not the traditional kind of editing where you can make changes like you would in a text editor. You have seen that changes are highlighted in either different colors, or have a bold font. Many tools allow you to click on this highlighted text and open a list of synonyms when you do so. You can navigate this list and learn about a lot of other words that are synonyms of the one being used.
You can see this feature in action by trying out a couple of tools from the first page of SERP rankings.
Conclusion
Utilizing a paraphrasing tool to improve vocabulary may sound pretty straightforward at a glance. However, there are some minor complications involved. Hopefully, with these four tips, you can avoid the complications and ease the process of improving your vocabulary.
In this article, we looked at four tips to help you. They involved; selecting an appropriate paraphrasing tool, selecting the right mode of paraphrasing, paraphrasing your work, and using the editing features provided by the tools themselves.
You should apply these tips to your own writing process, and they will help to improve your vocabulary effectively.
