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- As you work on a paper, you choose your topic, your approach, your sources, and your thesis; when it’s time to write, you have to choose the words you will use to express your ideas and decide how you will arrange those words into sentences and paragraphs. As you revise your draft, you make more choices.
writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/word-choice/
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Dec 2, 2022 · The meaning of “word choice” may seem self-explanatory, but to truly transform your style and writing, we need to dissect the elements of choosing the right word. This article will explore what word choice is, and offer some examples of effective word choice, before giving you 5 word choice exercises to try for yourself.
- What This Handout Is About
- Introduction
- “Awkward,” “Vague,” and “Unclear” Word Choice
- Writing For An Academic Audience
- Selecting and Using Key Terms
- Strategies For Successful Word Choice
- Questions to Ask Yourself
- Works Consulted
This handout can help you revise your papers for word-level clarity, eliminate wordiness and avoid clichés, find the words that best express your ideas, and choose words that suit an academic audience.
Writing is a series of choices. As you work on a paper, you choose your topic, your approach, your sources, and your thesis; when it’s time to write, you have to choose the words you will use to express your ideas and decide how you will arrange those words into sentences and paragraphs. As you revise your draft, you make more choices. You might as...
So: you write a paper that makes perfect sense to you, but it comes back with “awkward” scribbled throughout the margins. Why, you wonder, are instructors so fond of terms like “awkward”? Most instructors use terms like this to draw your attention to sentences they had trouble understanding and to encourage you to rewrite those sentences more clear...
When you choose words to express your ideas, you have to think not only about what makes sense and sounds best to you, but what will make sense and sound best to your readers. Thinking about your audience and their expectations will help you make decisions about word choice. Some writers think that academic audiences expect them to “sound smart” by...
When writing academic papers, it is often helpful to find key terms and use them within your paper as well as in your thesis. This section comments on the crucial difference between repetition and redundancy of terms and works through an example of using key terms in a thesis statement.
Be careful when using words you are unfamiliar with.Look at how they are used in context and check their dictionary definitions.Be careful when using the thesaurus.Each word listed as a synonym for the word you’re looking up may have its own unique connotations or shades of meaning. Use a dictionary to be sure the synonym y...Don’t try to impress your reader or sound unduly authoritative. For example, which sentence is clearer to you: “a” or “b”?Before you revise for accurate and strong adjectives, make sure you are first using accurate and strong nouns and verbs.For example, if you were revising the sentence “This is a good book that tell...Am I sure what each word I use really means? Am I positive, or should I look it up?Have I found the best word or just settled for the most obvious, or the easiest, one?Am I trying too hard to impress my reader?What’s the easiest way to write this sentence? (Sometimes it helps to answer this question by trying it out loud. How would you say it to someone?)We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance ...
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why is word choice important? As you work on your academic essays, you want to create sentences that express clear, precise ideas to your readers. You want to be mindful about overusing abstract terms because your writing will lose clarity.
What is word choice in writing? “Word choice” refers to the specific words a writer uses to create the most precise, persuasive, and engaging response possible. A skilled writer knows how to get the most out of their vocabulary and how to choose the best word for any readership.
Some writers are picky about word choice as they start drafting. They may practise some specific strategies, such as using a dictionary and thesaurus, using words and phrases with proper connotations, and avoiding slang, clichés, and overly general words.
Nov 4, 2020 · For the most part, I use it for checking words that I already suspect don’t match the tone of my draft, as well as for learning how a word I’m unfamiliar with is used in academic settings. However, the COCA can do a lot more than that—it’s a useful tool for all kinds of questions about English use, as well as a lot of fun to just play ...
Academic Style: Word Choice. This handout is available for download in DOCX format and PDF format. Principles of Word Choice. Use specific, precise words. Words like “stuff,” “things,” and “interesting” are too vague.
