Hello everyone,
I was recently PMed by a fellow member who wanted some tips on developing a stronger vocabulary. Realising this could be a common question, I wanted to share my experience as a cautionary tale to the mistakes I made.
Writing essays and creatives throughout high school - more so in my preliminary and HSC years, I always hated using the same words repeatedly. Mostly in my preliminary years, I resorted to using online thesauruses to choose more 'sophisticated' words in replacement of those in my existing vocabulary which seemed bland and unoriginal. However, as I progressed through the year and became more exposed to other people's exemplary works, whether it be from my school or my tutor or even from the internet, I noted how, in many cases, the simplest language scored the highest of marks. Reading through these exemplars, as well as textbooks and newspapers, I found words and sentence structures I was fond of and applied these to my own essays.
You ask, how can I can improve my vocabulary? From my experience, I can say without hesitance that using a thesaurus exposed me to a vast range of new words which acted as bricks to build my sentences and essays. But more importantly, I realised that using a dictionary to find the precise meaning of words allowed me to use the correct bricks to construct a coherent response. By doing so, I was not simply implanting synonyms but learning how to use these newly found words in the correct context. Eventually, I found that my dependency on a thesaurus decreased. Also try to keep in mind that an excessive amalgamation of brobdingnagian words can simply make your sentences convoluted (see what I mean?).
To summarise, whilst it is important to have a wide vocabulary, it is even more important to choose words which deliver the exact meaning you aim to express. If you can vary your sentence structure and perfect your choice of wording, the clarity and sophistication will follow.
Hope I could be of some help.
I was recently PMed by a fellow member who wanted some tips on developing a stronger vocabulary. Realising this could be a common question, I wanted to share my experience as a cautionary tale to the mistakes I made.
Writing essays and creatives throughout high school - more so in my preliminary and HSC years, I always hated using the same words repeatedly. Mostly in my preliminary years, I resorted to using online thesauruses to choose more 'sophisticated' words in replacement of those in my existing vocabulary which seemed bland and unoriginal. However, as I progressed through the year and became more exposed to other people's exemplary works, whether it be from my school or my tutor or even from the internet, I noted how, in many cases, the simplest language scored the highest of marks. Reading through these exemplars, as well as textbooks and newspapers, I found words and sentence structures I was fond of and applied these to my own essays.
You ask, how can I can improve my vocabulary? From my experience, I can say without hesitance that using a thesaurus exposed me to a vast range of new words which acted as bricks to build my sentences and essays. But more importantly, I realised that using a dictionary to find the precise meaning of words allowed me to use the correct bricks to construct a coherent response. By doing so, I was not simply implanting synonyms but learning how to use these newly found words in the correct context. Eventually, I found that my dependency on a thesaurus decreased. Also try to keep in mind that an excessive amalgamation of brobdingnagian words can simply make your sentences convoluted (see what I mean?).
To summarise, whilst it is important to have a wide vocabulary, it is even more important to choose words which deliver the exact meaning you aim to express. If you can vary your sentence structure and perfect your choice of wording, the clarity and sophistication will follow.
Hope I could be of some help.
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