A dictionary explains the meaning only verbally and with examples. But at times you need diagrams to understand the words, their inflections, derivatives and its etymology in a more effective way. There are many online dictionaries that do the job in the traditional way. Visit Visuwords.com which explains words in a graphical manner and in a better way.
This site consists of only one page. The header has a search bar. Enter the word you want to look up or click 'Random' to see a randomly chosen word. It is displayed in neuranet model. This graphic is displayed b
elow the header. The graphic is a flash animation. You can see the tree grow more and more depending upon the word and its inflections. Nouns are displayed in blue circle, verbs are displayed in green circle. Derivations are indicated with grey dotted line connecting the root word. Place your cursor on the circles to see the definition and at times, a sentence for example. The legend is given right below the graphical area. You can enlarge and decrease the graphical area with your scroll button on the mouse. You can pawn the graphic by clicking and holding the left mouse button whichever way you want. See my screenshot. When I searched for the word 'web' the graphic looked like this. You can enlarge the graphic to the full width of your screen.
The interface of the site is simple, coz you dont need many options except looking up the dictionary. The inflections cannot be understood easily based upon their coloured cicles, lines and dotted lines. You need to master the legend. But its not hard to memorize them. The colors are easy to remember.
The site uses Princeton University's WordNet, an opensource dictionary built by University students and language researchers.
The positive thing is that the site is free to use and its a good site for people who are not native english speakers.
I give it a big thumbs up to the site. :-)
Click here to visit the site : http://www.visuwords.com/
A good speech can change your mind to achieve big things. It can renew your energy to fight life, fight for your country, it can even make you stick to your ideals. Many people need them when they are low in spirits or need more inspiration and force to boost their morale. Those great speeches need to be preserved.
American rhetoric is a website which has a large speech bank of American speeches of twentieth century. The opening page is pleasing with the blue background. You can see snippets of some 
sections available at the website like Online Speech Bank, Top 100 speeches etc. The Navigation Pad is on the left side. But the font size could be larger.
The website has a large database of speeches in its Speech Bank. The speeches are indexed in alphabetical order of the name of the orator. The Speech Bank page has a section devoted to Iraq War Speeches. It also features Recent additions and Special Events. All the speeches have an mp3 format for download and transcribed text. Video in Windows Media is also available for some speeches. The audio can be heard online too.
The Top 100 Speeches Section has links by Rank of speech, by Decade and by Women Orators. Many of the speeches are available for download in .pdf format also. But unfortunately, the navigation pad is not available on the Index page and the page of speech. You have to open it in a new window or press Back on the tool bar of the browser to continue navigation.
The website has a good collection of movie speeches, Figures in Sound - the speeches are good in sound to hear with alliteration, rhyme and rhythm, Christian Rhetorics, Rhetoric of 9-11. The site also has a section for Scholars which has links to web sites of communication associations and journals. It has a quiz for scholars too.
American Rhetoric is a useful website for listening and downloading some very great american speeches. The biggest flaw is the font size of the Navigation Pad. The font can be a little bigger. My eyes got strained to read the font. The site loading is a little slow, may be due to the template design and colors. Its a neat three column template.
As for usefulness of this website, I give it a thumbs up.
Click here to visit the website : www.americanrhetoric.com
