As a infant just start crawl, I need to find some magic bullets for saving my writing journey, I think book such as Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases is a good choice to me, and Longman Essay Activator is a condensed version of Roget’s Thesaurus, good for read, suit for new guy
Gary Provost in 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing points out that:
the most important vocabulary for the writer is not the one that will take in uxorious tomorrow and soubrette the next day. It’s the one he or she already has. For the writer of average intelligence and education, learning new words is much less important than learning to use easily the words he or she already knows.
I always come across some beautiful paragraphs I know exactly every single words in between, but absolutely sure these paragraphs don’t belong to me, I can read, but not write, for example: “The importance of writing stems from the fact that writing is the primary basis upon which communication, history, record keeping, and art is begun”, “stem from” is such a beautiful phrase, and in this book, you can find:
list stems of this book:
Advantages & Disadvantages
1. Writing about advantages
2. Writing about disadvantages
Agreeing
1. To agree with someone or something
2. To partly agree with someone or something
3. When a group of people agree
Aim or Purpose
1. Ways of saying what the aim or purpose of something is
2. Words meaning aim or purpose
Approximate / Exact
1. Words meaning approximately
2. Words meaning exactly
Causes
1. To cause something to happen
2. Ways of saying that something is caused by another thing
3. To be one of the things that cause something to happen
Certainty & Uncertainty
1. Ways of saying that you are certain about something
2. Ways of saying that you are not certain about something
Comparing & Contrasting
1. What you say when comparing things or people
2. To compare things or people
Concluding
1. What you say when concluding your essay or argument
2. Saying again what your aims were at the conclusion of an essay
Decreasing
1. To decrease
2. To make something decrease
3. A decrease
4. When something stops decreasing
Disagreeing
1. To disagree with someone or with an opinion
2. When people disagree about something
3. Causing disagreement
Effects
1. Words meaning effect
2. To affect something or someone
Emphasizing
1. What you say when emphasizing that something is important
2. Ways of emphasizing one person or thing more than others
3. To emphasize something
Explaining
1. What you say when you are explaining something
2. Words meaning to explain something
Giving Example
1. What you say when giving an example
2. What you say when there are a lot of other examples of something
3. To give something or someone as an example
Giving Exceptions
1. Ways of saying that something or someone is an exception
2. Someone or something that is not included
Giving Opinions
1. What you say when giving your opinion about something
2. Ways of saying what another person’s opinion is
3. To say what your opinion is about something
Giving Reasons
1. What you say when giving reasons for something
2. Words meaning reason
3. A reason that does not seem believable
Increasing
1. To increase
2. To make something increase
3. An increase
4. When something does not increase, or stops increasing
Linking Parts Of A Sentence
1. Words meaning ‘and’ or ‘also’
2. Words meaning ‘because’
3. Words meaning ‘but’ or ‘although’
4. Words meaning ‘if’
5. Words meaning ‘in order to’
6. Words meaning ‘or’
7. Words meaning ‘therefore’
Listing & Ordering
1. What you say when ordering a group of things that you want to mention
2. Ways of introducing a list of reasons, causes, points etc
Making Generalizations
1 .Ways of saying that something is true about most people or things
2. To say that something is true about most people or things
Problems & Solutions
1. Problems
2. Small problems
3. Solutions
Quoting People
Ways of quoting what someone has said
Reffering
1. Referring to an earlier part of an essay, report etc
2. Referring to a later part of an essay, report etc
3. Referring to another piece of work
Related / Unrelated
1. Ways of saying that two things are related
2. Related to what is being discussed
3. Not related
4. Not related to what you are discussing
Showing & Proving
1. To show that something is true
2. To show that something is likely
3. To show that something is untrue
Study & Research
1. To study something in order to try to find out more about it
2. The work of studying something
3. A piece of writing by someone who is studying a subject
4. The results of someone’s research
Subjects & Topics
1. Ways of saying what the subject of something is
2. Words meaning subject
this little handbook is part of Longman Exam Dictionary, the PDF author comment at the end of this handbook:
This material was extracted from Longman Exams Coach CD-Rom, If you find this material useful and have possible financial ability, please legally purchase Longman Exam Dictionary (which includes Longman Exam Coach CD-Rom)
