Building a Better Vocabulary

Lecture 2: The Spelling-Meaning Connection

diamond or you’ve been in a situation where you’ve felt obliged to

put on a factitious smile or laugh.

z The etymology of factitious can be a little tricky because it has

the word fact in it, which might lead you to think it means “true.”

However, the root in factitious is fac, which means “make,” and we

associated this root with the key word factory. Of course, a factory

brings to mind things that are made by humans and are not natural.

Thus, when you run across factitious, think of a factory, making

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Organizing Your Learning

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but for the remainder of the course, we’ll learn approximately 10

new target words per lecture. To keep this cornucopia of vocabulary

organized, you may want to keep a vocabulary notebook or create a

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along the same lines as these lectures, by general concept and topic.

z For each word, use the vocabulary-learning principles we’ve

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contextual sentence, make a personal connection to the word, and

include notes on the morphology and etymology of the word.

z As you continue to learn and collect words on your own after

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and add new topical sections. Think of your vocabulary notebook

as your own repository of powerful words that you can draw on

when needed.

Morphology 101

z To conclude this introduction to learning principles and concepts,

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throughout the course.