One interesting way of helping students analyze drafts of their papers is to have them create a word cloud. The more often a word appears in the paper, the larger the font of that word will be in the word cloud. Students can use a word cloud to make sure the content of the paper is consistent with their thesis statement and the goal of the assignment. They can also determine whether they have overused a word and should seek out synonyms in a thesaurus.To create a word cloud, students simply go to a web site such as Wordle.net. Richard Byrne recently provided a list of word cloud tools in his blog Free Technology for Teachers. The sample word cloud at the right shows a word cloud created by Tagul.com using the words on the webpage that lists and describes the Magna 20 Minute Mentor videos available to Simpson faculty.
