Exercises help you choose and use words that express your thoughts clearly and exactly. Many of these exercises can be completed orally rather than in writing. The Shades of Meaning section looked fun, even, and like good fodder for dinnertime conversation! A word, or words similar in meaning, can elicit different emotional responses. Fire, for instance, can be helpful or dangerous; can warm or injure. The book also looks at bias, figurative constructs, and being concise. Later practice includes recognizing valid and invalid conclusions and differentiating fact from opinion. Methods of organizing writing to produce coherent paragraphs are modeled and examined and a concluding section practices comprehension and retention of key points in narratives.