======================================================================== Why you usually shouldn't cite dictionary definitions in papers you write for publication or for courses. And how to cite them if you do :-) ======================================================================== 1. Let me begin with the second item first. Never say "the dictionary defines this word as...", because there's no such thing as "the" dictionary. Ditto for saying "Webster's dictionary says...". There's no such thing as "Webster's". There are lots of dictionaries, each of which defines words differently. And there are lots of unrelated dictionaries called "Webster's". If you're going to cite a dictionary definition, cite * if possible, the name of the editor of the dictionary, * the full title, * edition * date * publisher (including city of publication) just as you would for any other book that you cite: Editorlastname, Editorfirstname (ed.) (year-of-publication), Title of Dictionary in Italics, number-of-edition (City-of-publication: Publisher) Some dictionaries are better than others; each has their idiosyncracies. The ones published by Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, Random House, Oxford University Press, Longman's, Collins, and a few others are all generally good. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. But why shouldn't you cite dictionaries? Because they don't tell you what words mean! What? Isn't that what dictionaries are for? Maybe that's what they're supposed to be for, but what they really do is tell you how some people use words. And those uses are not necessarily "correct" or appropriate or technical. This is best illustrated by examples, which I'll give below. One inappropriate use is when you're writing a paper investigating the nature of some concept and you cite a dictionary definition of the word expressing the concept as your answer. If the real meaning (assuming that there is one) were in a dictionary, there'd be no reason to investigate what the nature of the concept. Consider the question "What is a computer?" Turning to the dictionary won't help analyze the nature of computers; that has to be done by studying some computer science, some theory of computation, using some computers, reading articles by computer scientists and philosophers on what computers are, etc. 3. Now let me give you some horror-story examples. a) Look up "college" in almost any Merriam-Webster dictionary, including their on-line version. The first definition is: "a body of clergy living together and supported by a foundation" (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/college) Oh really? Most of you reading this are college students. Did you know that you were clergy? Or that you were "supported by a foundation" (whatever that means)? What the online version doesn't tell you, but the published version does, is that "The order of senses within an entry is historical: the sense known to have been first used in English is entered first" (Mish, Frederick C. (ed.) (1983), _Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary_ (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster): 19). b) Look up the meaning of "infract" on Merriam-Webster Online. It's defined as "infringe". Do you know what "infringe" means? MWO says that it means "encroach", so look that up. Do you think that the definition of "encroach" applies to "infract"? c) In 1971, a friend told me that something was "humongous". I politely pointed out that there was no such word, and that she probably was thinking of "huge" or "tremendous". She insisted it was a word. We looked it up. It was not in any dictionary we could find. But it is now. At the time, it had only been around for about 4 years and hadn't yet made it into any dictionaries we knew about. d) Do you know what a brachet is? For more about this word and other dictionary problems, see: Rapaport, William J.; & Kibby, Michael W. (2007), "Contextual Vocabulary Acquisition as Computational Philosophy and as Philosophical Computation", Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence: 19(1) (March): 1-17. http://www.informaworld.com.gate.lib.buffalo.edu/smpp/content~content=a770963357~db=all~order=page