Chapter 9.14 Word Choice

Word Choice (a.k.a. Avoiding Wordiness, Overly Generalized Words, Cliches, and Slang)

Effective writing involves making conscious choices with words.

Steps for Effective Writing:

• Make conscious choices with your words.
• Before writing your first draft, you’ve likely:
  • Completed some freewriting exercises.
  • Chosen your topic.
  • Developed your thesis statement.
  • Written an outline.
  • Select your sources (if any are needed).
• As you begin your first draft:
  • Think carefully about which words will best express your ideas to the reader

Some writers are picky about word choice as they start drafting. They may practice some specific strategies, such as using a dictionary and thesaurus (or Word’s synonym finder) and avoiding wordiness, slang, and clichés.

Once you understand these tricks of the trade, you can move ahead confidently in writing your assignment. Remember, the skill and accuracy of your word choice is a major factor in developing your writing style. Precise selection of your words will help you be more clearly understood—in both writing and speaking.

Word Choice

• Word choice is important.
• You must choose your words carefully.
• You must avoid poor word choices, like wordiness, slang, and clichés.
• Poor word choice leads to confusion.
• Your writing should be vivid and interesting, which comes from choosing the right words (and using synonym finders).

Wordiness

Wordiness means using more words than necessary to get a message across.

Sometimes people use excessive words because they believe they sound more intelligent. The truth is, too many words often cause confusion for a reader, and a reader may judge the writer as pretentious.

Ex: In my opinion, I think that job quotas in the workplace are unfair. (Too wordy)

• Corrected: Job quotas in the workplace are unfair. (Concise)

Wordy expressions to AVOID:

• Due to the fact that… → because, since, due to
• In this day and age… → now, today
• Small in size → small
• Blue in color → blue

Overly General Words

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 your words to life. Add words that provide color, texture, sound, and even smell to your writing.

• General: My new puppy is cute.
  • Specific: My new puppy is a ball of white fuzz with the biggest black eyes I have ever seen.
• General: My teacher told us that plagiarism is bad.
  • Specific: My teacher, Ms. Atwater, created a presentation detailing exactly how plagiarism is illegal and unethical.

Clichés

Clichés are descriptive expressions that have lost their effectiveness because they are overused. Writing that uses clichés often suffers from a lack of originality and insight. Avoiding clichés in formal writing will help you write in original and fresh ways.

Clichéd: Whenever my brother and I get into an argument, he always says something that makes my blood boil.

• Plain: Whenever my brother and I get into an argument, he always says something that makes me really angry.
• Vivid: Whenever my brother and I get into an argument, he always says something that makes me want to go to the gym and punch the bag for a few hours.

Slang

Slang describes informal words that are considered nonstandard English. Slang often changes with passing fads and may be used by or familiar to only a specific group of people. Most people use slang when they speak and in personal correspondences, such as e-mails, text messages, and direct/instant messages. Slang is appropriate between friends in an informal context but should be avoided in formal academic writing.

Frequent exposure to media and popular culture has desensitized many of us to slang. In certain situations, using slang at work may not be problematic, but keep in mind that words can have a powerful effect. Slang in professional e-mails or during meetings may convey the wrong message or even mistakenly offend someone.

Attributions

4.3: Word Choice is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Anonymous via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.