Words and their effect on your intelligence.
Research shows that people who are smarter generally have a larger Wernicke's area. Wernicke's area is a part of the brain that is associated with the number of words that a person knows. So, the more words you learn the smarter you will become. As a rule I encourage my students to learn 20 new words daily. If you do this regularly you will increase your vocabulary by more than 7,000 words a year. In just 7 years you will know almost 50,000 words - that is the size of many good dictionaries. Consider this for a moment, William Shakespeare used a total of approximately 17,500 words in his collective works.
So where do we find these 20 new words? I try to read a book every week, solve the word and crossword puzzles in the daily newspapers and make a point of reading the newspapers. I check the meanings of each of these words and then make sure that I use the words when I talk to people (sometimes explaining the meaning if the people don't understand). When you are selecting books ensure that there is at least one word on each page that you don't know. This is called selection of books above your current reading level. After you have read just 30 pages you should have learned at 20 new words. Always select books that you have an interest in. This will keep you reading page after page.
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