Memorandum
To: Editing Technical Publications Participants
From: Roland Nord
Date: January 17, 2006
Re: Vocabulary exercise (Vocabulary475.doc)
Many people believe that a large vocabulary is a sign of intelligence. Whether that is true
or not, a good vocabulary is essential to you as a professional and technical
communicator. As an editor, you are often expected to be a language expert;
furthermore, a vocabulary is something that you build—that you work on and develop
by using the proper tools: dictionaries, thesauruses, literature, journals and newspapers,
conversation, and so forth.
Your task is to develop your vocabulary, to actively work on building a larger more
effective vocabulary in your major and technical minor. To do so, I encourage you to
keep a journal that contains new vocabulary that you encounter in your readings, studies,
and classes.
Each week (as assigned), please write a memo to me in which you list the 5 new words
for that week and provide their dictionary definitions (using quotation marks or
indenting if quoting directly and citing your source) as well as any additional information
that you find useful. Additionally, use each word in an original sentence.
For your first vocabulary list, please define the following terms and two terms of your
choice:

canard

Googlewhack

metadata
Please do not define terms that are listed in Appendix A of CMS or the glossary of TE.
Your vocabulary memo is due by the beginning of next class and is worth 10 points.
Please save your document as Voc#y3i.doc (e.g., Voc1rdn.doc), replacing the # with a
numeral and the y3i with your three initials.