Writing - Context Clues

In writing, you can gain a lot by context clues. If you don't know the meaning of a particular word, the other words in that sentence (or paragraph) may help you! I received an email today that perfectly illustrates this! (It also shows that teachers don't know every single word out there!)

Before showing you the email, let me give you a bit of background. I was asked to create some PowerPoint slides for a short presentation that'll be a part of a video conference. I needed these slides (and the information contained on them) to give viewers an idea of what I was going to talk about. I created the slides & sent them in to some "big cheeses." (Isn't that a great idiom?!)

Here's a copy/paste of the email that I received (minus the sender's name).

"Great job at hitting the salient points."

I was not familiar with the word "salient." However, from the context clues in that sentence, I was able to tell that the sender (one of those "big cheeses") was happy with what I did, so I knew the word "salient" couldn't be bad! But, because I didn't know it, I went to an online dictionary site to look it up. Here's what I found!

salient:
Pronunciation: \ˈsā-lyənt, -lē-ənt\
Definitions:
1: moving by leaps or springs
2: jetting upward salient fountain>
3a: projecting beyond a line, surface, or level
3b: standing out conspicuously : prominent; especially : of notable significance

So, based on the context clue in the email of "great" and looking at the definitions of the word, I learned the word (as used in the email I received) was using the final definition (3b).

:-)

Do you use context clues when you read? How much do you think they help you?