A thesaurus is a specialized dictionary that contains synonyms and antonyms of the words that you look up.  Synonyms are words that have the same meaning and antonyms are words that are the opposite of each other.  Thesauri or thesauruses are a great help when you are writing a paper for any subject in school.  There are many times when you do not want to use the same word two or three times in an essay.  A thesaurus can help you to find different words for you writing piece that will help you to spice up a sentence.  It will also help you to expand your vocabulary as you are using it. 

 Different from a regular dictionary, it will not give you the definition of a word; it will only give you the synonyms and antonyms.  Thesauruses are available in every bookstore and also online. (See Resources).  Here are some guidelines for using the thesaurus:

• Definitely use the thesaurus when you are doing creative writing.  It will help to add “meat” to your story.
• You can use it to assist you in writing research papers, especially if you are paraphrasing from a source.

One warning:  Do not overuse the thesaurus.  A writing piece with too many extravagant words is not easy to read, and it takes away from the flow of the writing piece.