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Dec 2, 2022 · Word Choice Definition: The Four Elements of Word Choice The definition of word choice extends far beyond the simplicity of “choosing the right words.” Choosing the right word takes into consideration many different factors, and finding the word that packs the most punch requires both a great vocabulary and a great understanding of the nuances in English.
Sep 16, 2022 · Word choice tips Increase your vocabulary. The more words you have in your vocabulary—both your passive and active vocabularies —the better equipped you are to make strong word choices when you write. There are lots of ways you can build up your vocabulary, like through apps like Free Rice and by reading more.
- Lindsay Kramer
- 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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Tips for improving word choice in writing. Now, here are a few things you can keep in mind for using strong word choice to improve your written work. Expand your vocabulary. Strong writers have strong vocabularies: fact. You’ll have a better chance of choosing the right words every time if you have a bank of strong, specific words to choose from.
Nov 21, 2023 · A strong word choice typically involves words that have a heavier weight to them. These are words that stand out because they are more powerful than the baseline of the words the author usually uses.
- Word choice refers to the words an author uses to support their purpose in a text. Each word has specific meaning as well as connotation and denota...
- Every word an author chooses contributes to the idea of word choice. An author may use specific words to sway opinions, to entertain, or to inform....
Specific words and images make your writing more interesting to read. Whenever possible, avoid overly general words in your writing; instead, try to replace general language with particular nouns, verbs, and modifiers that convey details and that bring yours words to life. Add words that provide colour, texture, sound, and even smell to your ...
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Words like “everyone” and “society” can be applied to a wide range of things, people, and ideas. They encourage readers to think in very general terms, or in generalities. In this example, writer Sarah Zhang shows how a study applies broadly to people’s perception of race.
