Instructions for Vocabulary

During the semester and always on Fridays, you'll need to bring in a vocabulary word for the class. 

• You must bring in the sentence in which you found the word, the source, and the word's meaning. Write this information into your notebook so that you know where it is and have a record of it. An extensive citation information isn’t needed; "my Calculus text, page 53" is perfectly adequate.
• You really ought to be able to pronounce it, too.
• Each word must be one you run across in your reading. Whether it's reading for this class, another class, or your own pleasure and edification doesn’t matter.
• The word you choose should be one that you don't know, or are at least not very certain of. We're doing this to learn more useful words, right?
• DO NOT go out and try to find impossibly obscure words; we all can do that, but if they're not words that you have a reasonable chance of running across in the normal course of your life, what's the point in studying them? Always keep in mind the purpose of any given assignment; here we're trying to expand our vocabularies, we're not trying to become mutant lexicography mavens.
• NO, you can’t use “mutant”, “lexicography”, or “maven” -- unless you see one of them somewhere else!

Adapted (or abused) from Chris Jones’s syllabus for That Way Madness Lies