WHICH DICTIONARY?
DISSECTING WORDS
A GOOD GENERAL English dictionary
should be on every students bookshelf. In
addition TO YOUR English dictionary, you
may require a dictionary which is for your
field of study alone. E.g. a dictionary of
Sociology.
You will have to determine your needs.
In addition, a good thesaurus is a good
investment, especially at Post-Graduate
level, where you need to find synonyms for
words when writing a thesis or dissertation.
VOCABULARY CARDS
A good, old-fashioned way to improve your
vocabulary is using Vocabulary Cards.
Small Index Cards are ideal. Carry some
with you, and when you encounter a new
word, write it on the card (also indicate the
context of the word). Later, when you have
access to a dictionary, you can look up the
meaning of the word, and write its definition
on the reverse side of the card.
When you have a batch of cards, take them
out and look at the side with the new word.
Try and give the meaning of the word, and
then check on the reverse side. These cards
are very helpful for courses where huge
numbers of technical terms are used, but as
every discipline has its own vocabulary, it is
a good way of learning these new words.
Knowing how words are constructed can
help a lot in building your vocabulary. There
is a heavy Latin influence on university
English. Knowing the meaning of the root of
a word will enable you to have a good guess HOW TO IMPROVE
at what a new word means which contains
the same root.
YOUR READING
SKILLS
A good dictionary will probably give you
some indication of the origin of the word. If
this is the case, make a note of the original There are a few things you can do
root word, and see if you can find other
to improve your reading skills
English words which are based on this root.
This brochure will give you tips on
e.g. how you can read faster and with
more understanding so that you can
The Latin word domus means a house. get through the reading you have to
From this root the English words do for your courses.
domestic, domesticate, domesticity
and domain are derived.
Brought to you by
So, if you know this, and are requested for
your domicile address, you may be able to
guess that this means the place where you
live, which may be different from your
postal address.
Ken Cage
Student Learning Centre: Manager
Massey University, Auckland
2003
Aiding your development

INTRODUCTION
This brochure will not focus on the causes of
poor reading skills, which are often the
result of wandering attention, sub-
vocalisation, regression or an inability to
organise the information you are reading.
Instead it will give you useful tips on how to
improve your reading skills FROM
TODAY, through building vocabulary,
using a dictionary, using vocabulary cards
and dissecting words.
BUILDING
VOCABULARY
Lets face it, reading at university is a lot
different to any other reading you may have
done before. Not only is the volume of
reading going to increase dramatically, but
the subject matter is going to become a lot
more difficult to understand. Often, this
means that you are going to have to enlarge
your vocabulary to be able to understand
what you are reading.
Many of these new words may be technical
words which are used in your discipline of
study. For example, if you are not a
linguistic student, the term semantic fields
will mean little or nothing to you. However,
as a linguistics student, it will be a very
meaningful phrase which could encapsulate
a whole field of your study. Similarly, in
economics you will find words like demand
curves and marginal utility, and in
psychology, libido and ganglion. Unless
you are a philosophy student, you will be
lost when reading about epistemology,
positivism and natural law.
Besides discipline-specific technical terms,
you will also come across general academic
terms like heuristic, deconstructionism university is a good dictionary. And when
and empirical research.
If you know what this vocabulary means, the
chances are that when you encounter the
words in your reading, it will be easier to
understand what you are reading than if you
dont.
Good students tend to have a strong
vocabulary. Not only are they able to
understand more words than a poor student,
but they are also able to discriminate among
multiple meanings of words.
Of course, the best way to build a large
vocabulary is to stop and look up a word
that you dont know in a dictionary.
PAY ATTENTION TO
NEW WORDS
Be on the lookout for new words! When you
encounter new words in your reading,
ALWAYS LOOK THEM UP IN A
DICTIONARY! Very often the meaning of
an entire sentence may be dependent on the
new, unfamiliar word. And this may be the
sentence which contains the main idea of the
paragraph!
applicable to your reading.
USE A DICTIONARY
The most important book you will need at
you have it, USE IT!
When you see a new word in the text, or an
old word in a new context, or a word you
think you know but are not sure about,
LOOK IT UP IN YOUR DICTIONARY!
YOUR DICTIONARY IS THE SINGLE
MOST IMPORTANT STUDY AID YOU
POSSESS.
There are some good dictionaries online via
the internet, but be careful, as they may be
AMERICAN dictionaries, with American
spelling.
Some words may have many meanings. You
will have to find the meaning which applies
in your field of study. SO dont just settle
for the first meaning listed, but look through
the whole entry.
e.g.
morphology (pl. ies) 1 branch of biology
concerned with the forms and structures of living
organisms. 2 the study of inflections and other forms
of words.
Depending on whether you are a biologist or
a linguist will determine which meaning is