Improve Your Vocabulary, Read Vocabulary: Everyday Living Words by Elliott Quinley

A well-developed vocabulary pays off in many important ways. Better-than-average “word power” makes it easier to understand everything you read and hear—from textbook assignments to TV news reports or instructions on how to repair a bicycle. And word power obviously increases your effectiveness as a communicator. Think about it: As far as other people are concerned, your ideas are only as convincing as the words you use to express them. In other words, the vocabulary you use when you speak or write always significantly adds or detracts from what you have to say.

VOCABULARY IN CONTEXT was written especially for you. The program was designed to enrich your personal “word bank” with many hundreds of high-frequency and challenging words.

There are six thematic books in the series—Everyday Living, Workplace and Careers, Science and Technology, Media and Marketplace, History and Geography, and Music, Art, and Literature. Each worktext presents topic-related readings with key terms in context. Follow-up exercises provide a wide variety of practice activities to help you unlock the meanings of unfamiliar words. These strategies include the study of synonyms and antonyms; grammatical word forms; word roots, prefixes, and suffixes; connotations; and the efficient use of a dictionary and thesaurus. Thinking skills, such as drawing conclusions and completing analogies, are included as reinforcement.

A word of advice: Don’t stop “thinking about words” when you finish this program. A first-class vocabulary must be constantly renewed! In order to earn a reputation as a firstrate communicator, you must incorporate the new words you learn into your everyday speech and writing.

Taken from Quinley, Elliott. 2002. Vocabulary: Everyday Living Words. California: Saddleback Publishing.