Help with Writing With Skill, Level 1, Week 18, Day Four, Step One

[Lizzytra]

I don't want to tell you how little I know about using the Thesaurus, but it might become evident as I am not sure how to help my son with his Copia Exercise for today! In the Step One: Review portion, my son couldn't find how to change the descriptive adjective, masterful, into a noun (answer: mastery). The book encourages you to have your child look the adjective up in the thesaurus and then to look in the noun subgroup of the entry. My question: are we finding the answer to the problem in the back of the thesaurus or do we look up one of the entries where the word "masterful" is used? If so, how do we choose which entry word will have the answer we are looking for?

 

I ended up giving him the previous answer as I couldn't figure out how to do it myself. Now we are stuck on needing to change the noun "war" into an adjective. I don't want to feed him another answer. I'd love to figure this out so I can teach him.

 

I'm sure the answer is literally right in front of my face! :) We have a Roget's International Thesaurus, Seventh Edition. 

 

Thank you to anyone who takes the time to help me. I appreciate it so much. 

[Tranquility7]

First, look up "war" in the alphabetical section at the back. In my Roget's Int'l 4th Ed, it lists a bunch of words, some listed as nouns and some as verbs. Per the assignment, I'm interested in nouns. Here are a few of the entries listed in the nouns section under "war":

armed conflict 797.1

military campaign 797.7

military science 797.10

 

as I look at the words, I notice the ones that have the meaning/connotation I am looking for tend to be in the 797 section.

So, look for the 797 section in the front section of the thesaurus.

 

When I look at 797, it is titled "Warfare".

The first subsections (797.1 - 797.17) are under a capitalized subheading (actually at the beginning of 797.1) that says NOUNS.

797.18 starts the VERBS section

797.25 starts the ADJS section, and goes on to list warlike, militant, fighting, warring, battling, martial, etc...

 

So that is how ya do it! Does that help?

Edited July 19, 2017 by tranquility7

[Lizzytra]

Thank you so much!! My son and I read through what you wrote and did the same in our thesaurus. I think we both got it! Many thanks again! 

First, look up "war" in the alphabetical section at the back. In my Roget's Int'l 4th Ed, it lists a bunch of words, some listed as nouns and some as verbs. Per the assignment, I'm interested in nouns. Here are a few of the entries listed in the nouns section under "war":

armed conflict 797.1

military campaign 797.7

military science 797.10

 

as I look at the words, I notice the ones that have the meaning/connotation I am looking for tend to be in the 797 section.

So, look for the 797 section in the front section of the thesaurus.

 

When I look at 797, it is titled "Warfare".

The first subsections (797.1 - 797.17) are under a capitalized subheading (actually at the beginning of 797.1) that says NOUNS.

797.18 starts the VERBS section

797.25 starts the ADJS section, and goes on to list warlike, militant, fighting, warring, battling, martial, etc...

 

So that is how ya do it! Does that help?

 

[stlily]

Yes, exactly as the person above described.  The WWS lesson where this is covered is Week 3, Day 2, Steps 1 & 2 but specifically, Step 2.

 

1) Look up "masterful" in the back of the thesaurus.

2) Under "masterful" the following words are listed:

 

lordly

skillful

imperious

perfected

 

3)The student then chooses the word closest in meaning to the original word.  In this case it would be "skillful".

4) The word "skillful" has the number 413.22 next to it.  "Masterful" is an adjective. If were looking to replace it with another adjective, you would go to the number 413.22 But because the instructions say, "Turn the descriptive adjectives into nouns..." the student will instead go to 413.

5) The heading 413 is for the word "skill". The list of words related in meaning to the word skill are divided into: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.  Find the section where nouns are listed and find the noun form of the word "masterful" (these are the words in bold). The words that are listed are "mastery" and "masterful".  Like you said, "mastery" is the best fit.  Great question. Hope this helps.

 

 

Lily