What topics can I create word lists (source files) for?
You certainly have at least one area of expertise — a topic or theme you know a lot about. Possible topics could be
- arts and culture
- education and training
- literature
- media and journalism
- sports
- entertainment and leisure
- travel and vacation
|
- commerce
- marketing
- accounting
- human resources
- philosophy
- civil engineering
- etc.
|
Of course the list above is rather general and you would have to narrow down your specific area of interest. Once you have chosen a topic you should perform some kind of branstorming session writing down every single word you think is connected to your theme. For example, if select literature, youm might come up with the following words:
- genre
- novels
- essay
- article
- poetry
- detective story
- story
- short story
- plot
- tale
- figure
- character
- author
- writer
- narrator
- dialogue
- gripping
|
- thriller
- best seller
- critic
- critique
- review
- fiction
- science fiction
- non-fiction
- drama
- prose
- prose fiction
- comedy
- testimonial
- creative writing
- fable
- portrait
- bibliography
|
- library
- librarian
- manuscripts
- edit
- editor
- publish
- publisher
- royalties
- illustration
- literary analysis
- journal
- magazine
- newsletter
- literary theory
- literary criticism
- critical analysis
- etc.
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These are already 50 vocabulary words you can use to create your source file. All you have to do now is complete the least so it contains at least 100 entries and add a definition and at least one sample sentence to each vocabulary word. For example, the first word in our list is «genre». The complete entry could look like this:
abscond [absconded; absconded; absconding]
v. to go away hastily or secretly; to hide
The newly wed couple will abscond from the reception to leave on the honeymoon.
adversary [plural: adversaries]
n. enemy; foe
The peace treaty united two countries that were historically great adversaries.
monitor [plurals: masc.: monitors; fem.: monitresses or monitrixes]
n. supervisor; screen, device that produces the visual display (Computers)
What happened was that in these schools the ablest boys and the ablest girls were picked out and made monitors and monitresses.
Please note that the words in the definition (second line of entry) are divided by (
;) and not by comma (
,).
Verb forms: [Past Simple, Past Participle, Present Participle]
For nouns: [no plural]
or [only plural]
or [plural:
plural form of word]
or [plurals: masc.:
plural form for masculine; fem.:
plural form for feminine]
Below you'll see a sample source file for the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test). This word list was created by Anne Neumann, a student of medicine in the US. Anne is using various MCAT prep materials, dictionaries as well as Internet resources to compose her word list. However, all her definitions and sample sentences are unique, that means, she doesn't simply copy them out of a book or from a website but changes and edits everything so that her wordlist becomes a new product:
Download (without verb and noun forms):
sample source file for the MCAT
If you have any English grammar or vocabulary questions,
please post them on this English Grammar Forum. 
