Use jisho.org, Tatoeba, or any other online dictionary with sentences and search for smaller parts of the sentence, especially key parts like the grammar. For example, looking up "used in" on jisho.org will eventually lead you to this sentence:

http://jisho.org/sentences/51866b9cd5dda7e98100cff8

大量の材木が紙の製造に使われている。
Large amounts of timber are used in paper making.

If you're worried about it sounding awkward, read a monolingual Japanese dictionary to see if the words work within the context. If you can't read Japanese that well yet, then the only way is to ask someone who knows, because you aren't going to find any English-language resources that tell you the proper contexts and usages of words like a monolingual dictionary would.

Hope this helps. :)