| You're a student
of linguistics, and the professor says you're going to be using
Wordcorr in class this semester.
You've heard of the Comparative
Method, perhaps read something on it. This is your chance to see it
in action.
You've also noticed that other
students who have used Wordcorr don't seem intimidated by it --
less so than those who studied language comparison before Wordcorr
was available. You may not be exactly a tecchie, but on looking
over the shoulder of people using Wordcorr, it seems fairly
straightforward.
Take our word for it, comparative linguistics with pencil and paper
was tricky when you mislaid stuff, and often boring when you
didn't. Wordcorr doesn't have the thrill (and definitely not the
gore) of some video games. But start using it to follow out a train
of thought, and you'll find it plenty absorbing. And it's doable.
And free.
Starting into Wordcorr.
Once you get set up,
- download a test collection like
Mind5 from the SourceForge Web site to the file folder for your
class,
- start Wordcorr,
- look at Wordcorr Help whenever
you feel the urge,
- import the test collection into
Wordcorr using Import XML,
- copy the Contemporary view to a
view with your name on it,
- look at the first few entries
that have been annotated for you,
- check out the Refine panel to
see how those entries ended up,
- find an entry that isn't
annotated and try doing it yourself,
- tabulate what you annotated,
- check out Refine again and see
where everything ended up.
After you've
finished looking at this and following out some links, click here
to go to New user. |
Someone in your class will probably have figured out
already how to set up Wordcorr, so let them walk you through the
downloading and installation.
When the prof hits you with an
assignment to be done with Wordcorr, you'll probably breeze through
it. |
