Vocab expansion

[Lena Ting]

erina at ksu.ksu.edu (Erin Crouch) writes:
: Hello, I just subscribed to this group and find it extremely fascinating and 
: helpful.  I am an undergraduate Microbiology student at Kansas State 
: University in Manhattan, Ks.  I am in the process of trying to improve my 
: communication skills and find myself lacking in vocabulary.  Is there a good 
: way to improve your vocabulary?  If so how?  In the process of this 
: improvement I have also subscribed to groups in my own field of interest.  I 
: find some of the terms used foreign.  I am looking for a good all purpose 
: scientific dictionary.  I am too impatient to wait for my education to 
: catch-up to my reading interests.  Thank you for your help in advance.


Hi, when I was an undergraduate I wanted to improve my vocabulary,
too.  I bought a little notebook that I kept beside me when I read.
If I found that I came across a word that I couldn't clearly define,
then I wrote it down, along with the sentence I had read it in.  Then
I would look that word up in the dictionary and write down the
definition, too.  It was surprising to me how many words I thought I
understood when I read them, but couldn't clearly define.  I found
that in reading I was using context to infer the meanings of the word,
but this meant that the word was not part of my active vocabulary.

I kept this notebook by my bed and looked it over before bed when I
remembered.  I think the method helped because I could remember the
book and situation in which I first came across each word, which
helped me remember their definitions.

This turned out to help me a lot on the GRE's!

Good Luck,

Lena