The Macmillan School Dictionary is intended to be a dictionary for studying school subjects in English, but I believe it is also a very useful tool for non-native speakers who study in a British university. This dictionary saves them time from searching in bulky, too-specialised dictionaries with terminology of their discipline. Most university students seek an easy to search’n’find guide to everyday-use scientific terminology. The Macmillan School Dictionary is a ‘shortcut’.
First of all, it clearly distinguishes between British and American English spelling, pronunciation and meaning of words. Over 100 pictures and diagrams throughout the dictionary illustrate most of the common natural or scientific processes. The students can reinforce their vocabulary using the full-page colourful illustrations depicting popular ‘themes’ of their field. Further to that, ‘word family’ boxes provide groups of useful words for their projects or research topics at a glance.
Especially for electrical engineering students, it contains up-to-date language of computers and other technological advances, which makes scientific texts easier to read and more comprehensible. It contains precise and simple to understand explanations of scientific terms, which is a property hard to find in concise or advanced learners’ dictionaries.
The dictionary is supplemented with a PC CD. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this CD is not an ordinary electronic dictionary, a binary copy of the paperback dictionary! ‘QuickFind’ allows you to instantly find the meaning and the pronunciation of words in WEB-sites or documents just buy pointing at them with the mouse. ‘SoundSearch’ is an extremely useful tool for foreigners or generally people who have to adjust in linguistic environments dominated by bizarre terminology: you just type in the word the way it sounds and you learn all about it. Unfortunately, the pre-recorded pronunciation of the phonetic symbols does not seem to work (at least in Windows 95 and XP). In addition to that, if the user does not specify the pronunciation perfectly, the search engine is inflexible and does not produce any suggestions. Therefore, if the user is not familiar with phonetics he may find this facility a bit difficult to use.
It also contains interesting multimedia activities, which make the study of the language fun: unscrambling words, guessing words from illustrations or sounds and finding the most suitable word to a periphrasis etc. ‘SmartSearch’ is an explorer of word families. Hundreds of options help the user to narrow his search using specific grammar rules. For instance, the user can find only irregular verbs related to a noun or an adjective and vice versa. Finally, ‘Language Study Pages’ clarify many common ‘misunderstandings’ concerning collocations, pronunciation, register etc. (so that native & non-native speakers will finally realize that, for example, the Poles speak Polish).
I have no regrets to openly suggest this dictionary (and supplement CD) to non-British students attending laboratory exercises and tutorials in the School of Engineering of the University of Edinburgh. Many of them already use it successfully to refine their reports and projects.
Panagis N Vovos
School of Engineering and Electronics
University of Edinburgh