The only requirements on dictionary information made by the text lookup operation are that each form represented by the dictionary be available for lookup in the text form list and that information for each form be available in a sequence identical with the sequence of the forms. This leaves the ordering of entries variable. (Here an entry is a form plus the information that pertains to it.)

Two very useful ways for modifying a form dictionary are the addition to the dictionary of complete paradigms rather than single forms and the application of a single change to more than one dictionary form. The former is intended to decrease the amount of work necessary to extend dictionary coverage. The latter is useful for modifying information about some or all forms of a word, hence reducing the work required to improve dictionary contents. Applying the techniques developed at Harvard for generating a paradigm from a representative form and its classification, we can add all forms of a word to the dictionary at once. An extension of the principle would permit entering a grammatic description of each form. Equivalents could be assigned to the paradigm either at the time it is added to the dictionary or after the word has been studied in context. Thus, one can think of a dictionary entry as a word rather than a form.

If all forms of a paradigm are grouped together within the dictionary, a considerable reduction in the amount of information required is possible. For example, the inflected forms of a word can be represented, insofar as regular inflection allows, by a stem and a set of endings to be attached. (Indeed, the set of endings can be replaced by the name of a set of endings.) The full forms can be derived from such information just prior to the lookup of the form in the text form list. Similarly, if the equivalents for the forms of a word do not vary, the equivalents need be entered only once with an indication that they apply to each form. The dictionary system is in no way dependent upon such summarization or designed around it. When irregularity and variation prevent summarizing, information is written in complete detail. Entries are summarized only when by doing so the amount of information retained in the dictionary is reduced and the time required for dictionary operations is decreased.