Building Vocabulary for College is a vocabulary worktext that helps students increase their academic vocabulary through a practical, memorization-based approach. Users love the book for its "conciseness yet broadness of application," its focus on word parts, its non-condescending tone, and its emphasis on academic terms.

The text begins by presenting the basics such as common prefixes, suffixes, and roots. The lessons in Section 1 alternate between those that introduce ten word parts (along with two sentences featuring words based on each part) and those that present ten challenging words (which appear on college aptitude tests) containing those word parts.

Exercises following word-parts lessons include multiple-choice, matching, cloze sentences, and definitions, while exercises for challenging words lessons ask students to write their own definitions and work through multiple-choice exercises, cloze sentences, and analogies. The lessons in Section 2 introduce terms from a variety of academic disciplines to help students succeed across the curriculum.The Seventh Edition has been streamlined to better illustrate the connection between words and academic fields.