Microsoft Word 2003 has a great utility which is really "a gift" for all writers.

You can research any topic you want without leaving the document you are working on, provided you have a live Internet connection on the same computer.

To do that, select Tools > Research from the main menu. The RESEARCH dialog box will display on the right sidebar.

Type in, for example, "world cup" in the SEARCH FOR field and click the green arrow.

MS Word will automatically research all information available on the phrase "world cup" and display the following:

The definition and explanation of the phrase from the English Encarta Dictionary.

Then it will offer to translate the phrase to about ten different languages (to and from English).

It will then offer more definitions from the "Bilingual Dictionary" depending on the "translation language" selected.

If for example you have selected French, it will present the meaning of the phrase in English AND French.

If you change the "translation language" to Spanish, the Bilingual Dictionary will also switch to English-Spanish and give you a new definition in Spanish.

But we are not done yet.

If you need to read more about your search keywords, then you can click "All Reference Books" and "All research Sites" for a deeper search.

When we click the latter for "world cup," for example, we get a wonderful list of articles on "world cup" as listed by the HIGHBEAM Research site.

Click the results for FACTIVA RESEARCH and you are presented yet with another set of sources for "world cup," followed with research results on MSN Research.

The danger with this fantastic research tool is that you may end up spending all your time clicking this or that source and researching the hours away and not finishing the document you are working on.

Use MS Word's RESEARCH functionality sparingly because it is highly addictive.