Reference Reviews

Reference for Students

Concise Oxford American Dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. 1 vol. 1128. p. $19.95. ISBN 0-19-530484-5; ISBN-13 978-0-19-530484-8.

This handy desktop dictionary is based on the New Oxford American Dictionary, has more than 180,000 entries. Sample sentences and phrases help with usage, and definitions are illustrated with a few line drawings. The first part of speech for any work is given as the primary, most universal usage with another part of speech following. The introduction has both a key to pronunciations and a key to abbreviations. Brief histories of some of the words are given. The appendix includes a Ready Reference section with commonly misspelled words, guide to punctuation, common clichés to avoid, redundant expressions, proofreader’s marks, usage notes, a section on how words are built, states of the USA, Presidents of the USA, countries of the world, chemical elements, and standard weights and measures.