One of the most important concerns of the artist, apart from the techniques of working with plastics, is primarily what a particular plastic can do. Plastics have a wide and diverse range of properties; each one is different. For knowledgeable selection and use, the artist must know what his material is like. This involves a plunge into a new vocabulary, unfortunately burdened with chemical and engineering terms. (If these terms are not defined in the text, they will be found in the Appendices and Glossary.) Initial exploration with plastics does not require any deep technical information, but, if one chooses to continue working beyond these primary experiments, a deeper understanding of technical language will be essential.