To find the cultural contexts of a website, when it’s sole and only purpose is to find the meaning of words, is difficult to accomplish. Answering the five W’s, who, what, when, where and why will be no easy task, but necessary in order to accomplish the assignment. First I will try to answer the who part of context and finally answer the why part of the context.
First, the who of the contexts could be anybody who is trying to find the definition of any word. The knowledge of words, from there meaning and definition is the main reason for the website. What one will find in this website is all the necessary tools and information to comprehend any word that one may be unfamiliar with before navigating the website. One will use the website when they are unfamiliar with a certain word while reading something in particular. For example, if one is reading a science textbook, and they come across a word that they are not familiar with, than they would go to www.dictionary.com to find the definition and meaning of the unfamiliar word.
The location of the website www.dictionary.com would be on the World Wide Web. Anyone who has any type of internet connection, from dial-up, usually a phone line, to high speed internet usually cable, has access to the World Wide Web. One must also have access to a computer with internet capabilities. The computer can be a laptop or a desktop, as long as they have a Network Interface Card (NIC) or some sort of wireless adapter to connect to the internet, which is the World Wide Web.
Why would anyone ever want access to a dictionary on the internet? I believe the answer to this question is pretty simple, convenience. The convenience to quickly find a definition to a word is why it is better to use a dictionary on the internet than it is to use a book-type dictionary. Think about it? It does not take a brain surgeon to realize that it is easier to simply type a word in a search engine box and press enter to find the definition of a word rather than manually look up a word in a book-type dictionary. One could save an abundance of time using a dictionary on the internet instead of the traditional dictionary. Another reason it is better to use a dictionary on the internet is because one could make sure it is the most up dated version of whatever word one is looking for. The website www.dictionary.com is constantly being up dated. On the other hand in a book-type dictionary one must make sure it is the most updated version in order to trust the definition of the word is the most up dated version available.
In order for one to understand the content of the website one must clearly understand how to use the search engine box on the top right corner of the website. The five tabs located below the search engine box are also crucial to understand the content of the website. The following hyperlinks will direct the reader to where the tabs mentioned take the user on the website. Here are the links; Dictionary, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia, All Reference, and The Web.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Post 1
There are so many websites that I visit on a fairly regular basis, so it is difficult to pin point one to write about. The one particular website that I use frequently is www.dictionary.com. One of the main reasons I use this website is because when I read something for school or for other purposes I always seem to come across certain words that are foreign to my vocabulary. This website has helped me time after time to discern those foreign words into something meaningful and understandable.
The main focal point of this website consists of a search engine box on the top right corner, and five tabs just below the search engine box. These are all the necessary tools to properly and effectively navigate the website. The five tabs below the search engine box are labeled as follows, Dictionary, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia, All Reference, and The Web. Each one of these tabs is linked to another section of the website, which are designed to assist the main website. The main purpose of the website is to define the meaning of words, one word at a time, plus give you all the possible information about that word. For example, if one does not know what the definition of a cat is, then they would just type the word cat in the search engine box, and hit the enter key on their keyboard. The website www.dictionary.com would then look up the word cat in its database and come back with a variety of responses of what cat means. Also, the tabs on the websites would help gather more information on the word cat, for example the tab thesaurus would find the entire thesaurus for the word cat. The same goes for the rest of the tabs, they are there to help gather information on what ever word is typed into the search engine box.
The genre of the website would be simply considered a dictionary, one can quickly use to look up the definition of words. Some of the conventions of the website would be how the website breaks down the word it is defining. Whatever the word may be that the website is defining, it breaks the word down into its noun, verb, idiom, abbreviation, etc… form. The website also alters some of its conventions depending on the word that is typed in its search engine box. For example, the words principle and principal, both sound the same, but are two completely different words. For this reason the website would alter its convention to fit the meaning of each word. The word principle would have a completely different set of nouns, verbs, idioms, abbreviations, etc… than the word principal and vice versa.
The medium of web-based writing, such as blogging differs from traditional print/paper based writing in the following simple way. The print/paper based writing consumes paper, which consumes trees, and the blogging does not. Another way they both differ is that anyone can create a blog and post random writing in it, but not just anybody can have something printed and published in a print/paper based writing.
The main focal point of this website consists of a search engine box on the top right corner, and five tabs just below the search engine box. These are all the necessary tools to properly and effectively navigate the website. The five tabs below the search engine box are labeled as follows, Dictionary, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia, All Reference, and The Web. Each one of these tabs is linked to another section of the website, which are designed to assist the main website. The main purpose of the website is to define the meaning of words, one word at a time, plus give you all the possible information about that word. For example, if one does not know what the definition of a cat is, then they would just type the word cat in the search engine box, and hit the enter key on their keyboard. The website www.dictionary.com would then look up the word cat in its database and come back with a variety of responses of what cat means. Also, the tabs on the websites would help gather more information on the word cat, for example the tab thesaurus would find the entire thesaurus for the word cat. The same goes for the rest of the tabs, they are there to help gather information on what ever word is typed into the search engine box.
The genre of the website would be simply considered a dictionary, one can quickly use to look up the definition of words. Some of the conventions of the website would be how the website breaks down the word it is defining. Whatever the word may be that the website is defining, it breaks the word down into its noun, verb, idiom, abbreviation, etc… form. The website also alters some of its conventions depending on the word that is typed in its search engine box. For example, the words principle and principal, both sound the same, but are two completely different words. For this reason the website would alter its convention to fit the meaning of each word. The word principle would have a completely different set of nouns, verbs, idioms, abbreviations, etc… than the word principal and vice versa.
The medium of web-based writing, such as blogging differs from traditional print/paper based writing in the following simple way. The print/paper based writing consumes paper, which consumes trees, and the blogging does not. Another way they both differ is that anyone can create a blog and post random writing in it, but not just anybody can have something printed and published in a print/paper based writing.
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