Abstract
AbstractThis article reports on findings from interviews with students from the University of Ljubljana. The study is based on fourteen questions about participants’ habits of dictionary use, their look-up abilities, and their perceptions of the utility and quality of definitions and illustrative examples. Students were given nine contexts containing a clearly-marked common word used in an infrequent sense; they had to locate the relevant sense in the online Merriam–Webster Learner’s Dictionary (MWLD). A think-aloud method enabled the researchers to follow the students’ look-up process and record their problems as well as their suggestions on how to improve the content and presentation of information in the dictionary. Recommendations are provided on: the improvement of drop-down menus; the inclusion of the form(s) of a target word; illustrative examples; the use of italics, boldface, and colors as well as what types of information should be displayed or available if needed.
Published Version
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