A Spell-Checker for Scientific Terms?

deaflamb wonders: "I'm a biology major and have been writing a paper for a class. I'm using Microsoft Word on my mac. It's annoying me how often I have to click 'ignore' or 'add' on the spell checker when it comes across words only used in Science. Was wondering if there where any free scientific spell checkers out there that can be added into Word or OpenOffice (since I use that too), and how well they work?" It didn't take me long to find these guys, who look like they cover a significant portion of the terms used in the medical and science world, however, their price for a single user license for only one of their specialty packs can run into the hundreds of dollars. Might there be other options that are a bit more affordable or, as the deaflamb asks, free?

Comments

Not as far as I know

[poopdeville]

But this is a great idea for a collaborative, freely available project. I'm a mathematician by trade and have run into a similar problem. Want to work together?

Try this:

[Gothic_Walrus]

This page has a few dictionaries up for free. I don't know if they've got quite what you're looking for, but it's worth a shot.

Beyond that...the textbook is always a good choice. Type it, check it a few times, and then add it to the dictionary. :)

Re:Try this:

[pomo monster]

"Downside." Trust me. You mean "downside."

Same boat...

[xiao_haozi]

I am finishing up a BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and have battled this throughout my collegiate years as well. I have searched long and far for a solution and have thus far not found anything. I have come across a few medical versions but even they tend to be for the lay person. One solution (somewhat) has been http://wikipedia.com/. I know this is not a dictionary but works if you need to double check a spelling, but mainly I have found it useful while writing scientific pieces to double check a few pathways or cell types. While its not comprehensive by any means, it is coming along at a suprisingly great rate. On a quick note... The Cell (which can be found at NCBI website) is a good book reference for such purposes as is Voet and Voet's Biochemistry.

Just suck it up...

[Otter]

Realistically, you only use a tiny subset of scientific vocabulary. OK, as an undergrad you face more breadth than a researcher does, but still.

Just suck it up. Add words to your dictionary as you go, and within a month you'll rarely see those squiggly red lines. For some reason, people are too intimidated to just start into it.

Pubmed

[virology-not for com]

I had this idea a while ago. Probably every science major does. Anyways, dictionary files are simple, just the word followed by an endline. So all you need is a good database. A good one for biology is pubmed over at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=P ubMed&itool=toolbar They offer a way to download all their abstracts. Most are spell checked, and they should, in culmination, include most every biological word. So, download their abstracts (i think they are in xml) parse them (delete duplicates and words in a normal dictionary... maybe words with numbers) and put them into a txt file followed by an endline. Done.

Backup your dictionary!!!

[Lifix]

I can't tell you how few people remember to backup their dictionary when they backup a computer. I worked as an intern in the IT department at my school and tech savy faculty members would regularly loose 3+ years of work on a custom dictionary because they failed to back it up. I suggest you just struggle through, and add all the words to the dictionary, but remember to keep a copy somewhere.

The ability to customize your dictionary is something that most people in the tech world don't talk about much, but I use it every day of my life: by day I work at a computer retail store, but at night and on the weekends I'm a writer and a custom dictionary keeps me from screwing up proper nouns that I am using.

use amalgamated OOo dictionaries

[pbhj]

1, How about you have a website where people upload their private dictionaries (with a language option too??). This shouldn't be too hard using the OOo files as they are presumably XML, might be quite server intensive though. Strip the words and tabulate them (add them to a (pgsql?) database) - you can throw any away that you have enough of or that have already been rejected as misspellings (sp?!?).

If a word appears with the same spelling in 100 (or downloaders preference) dictionaries then it is tagged for inclusion in the master dictionary.

Uploaders could specify the general area they write in as well as the language, eg Physical Sciences, Literature, Agriculture, ... so a dictionary request could be limited by subject field too.

Require a dictionary upload _OR_ payment of a fee to avoid freeloaders.

2, ...
3, Profit ??!

[PS: I just looked and OOo uses .aff or .dic formats.]