Toward a Framework for Reviewing Online English Dictionaries

The criteria considered by reviewers of print dictionaries represent a consensus of opinion about what makes a “good” dictionary that has been developed over many decades. In contrast, because the presence of dictionaries online is a relatively new phenomenon, a set of agreed criteria for reviewers of online dictionaries has yet to be established. The authors propose a framework of eight broad criteria that reviewers might follow in their assessment of the relative merits of online dictionaries, along with a checklist of sub-criteria to aid in this assessment.