Thinking For Yourself Chapter 2 Summary

This chapter was titled “Word Precision: How do I Describe It”. The chapter sums up how important vocabulary is to communication and expressing our experiences. Our words are our thoughts so if our words aren’t clear then our thoughts aren’t clear. Dictionaries are a very important tool for this. It suggests every time you come across a word you do not know, you should look it up. “Clear thinking depends on clear word definitions” is a quote from the chapter that I highly agree with it. The chapter goes on to tell us the different kind of definitions of words. There is taxonomy, dictionary definitions, scientific definitions, and stipulative definitions. The chapter also touches on the Connotation of words which is the associations those words have. Knowing the etymology of a word can also help in giving us a concrete understanding of its definition. The chapter also states that critical reading begins with a resolve to aim for a neutral and accurate comprehension of the material.