An especially common weakness in writing is poor word choice. If you wish to write with clarity and grace, you must be willing to spend some time thinking about the words you use, about their sounds and rhythms, about their connotations, even about their histories Ñ the meanings of the root words from which they are derived, the associations they have acquired through centuries of use. Avoid words that are either too pompous or too colloquial, and beware of jargon. Try to use language that is vivid and precise; a paper that relies on vague and abstract language will be colorless, anonymous, and dull.
Common diction problems include:
Know the meaning of the words you use. Keep a good college dictionary close at hand. For special problems, use the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which gives the historical development of words.
Think carefully about the connotations and etymologies of the words you use. English is a rich language. Its syntax and core vocabulary are Germanic (Anglo-Saxon), but at various points in its history it has received heavy infusions of Romance vocabulary from Latin and French. This happy mixture allows for great stylistic flexibility. Be aware of the subtle differences between Germanic and Latinate words. "I was bothered until I worked out an answer" conveys the same basic information as "I experienced difficulty prior to arriving at a solution"; but the two sentences have very different shades of meaning.
Germanic words contribute vigor and directness; Latinate words add elegance and complexity. The best prose stylists keep a balance between Germanic and Latinate, concrete and abstract vocabulary, and they manipulate the differences in the length, sound, and "feel" of words. In general, avoid Latinate words if you can translate into Germanic equivalents with no loss of meaning. Do not use "facilitate his departure" if you mean "help him leave." Such nuances can be particularly important because they may introduce implied metaphors. You can tell by looking at the word "skyscraper" that it is a metaphor, but unless you have studied Latin you may not be aware that words like "aspersions" (from L. aspergere, to sprinkle) and "supercilious" (from L. supercilium, eyebrow) are also metaphorical. Writers can make unintentionally comic mistakes when they fail to realize that abstract, neutral-looking Latin words may be dead metaphors.
Imprecision can also result from using generally related terms as if they were synonymous--by failing to distinguish, say, between "irony" and "sarcasm" or between "efficiency" and "effectiveness" or between "disinterested" and "uninterested." Such mistakes often arise from misuse of a thesaurus.
The following words and phrases are often used imprecisely:
Slang terms and colloquialisms make informal speech earthy, pungent, and evocative. In formal prose, however, they become breezy and ineffective. For example:
Carter's attempt to liberate the hostages was not a very cool move.
Distinctions between "formal" and "informal" are never absolute, and intelligent writers often use colloquialisms for a conscious stylistic effect or rhetorical purpose. The best standard to go by is considered use: never use a colloquial expression without good cause or without thinking carefully about your reader's likely reaction. Enclosing a colloquialism in quotation marks distances the writer from the quoted material, but some readers may find this patronizing or offensive. Here are some common colloquialisms to avoid:
Some writers have a tendency to use sophisticated or mystifying language where plainer stuff will do. Using fancy words just for impact may make your reader suspect you of pomposity. Use polysyllabic words sparingly. Words like "epistemological," "institutionalization," and "hermeneutic" originate in philosophy, political science, and Biblical studies. They are specialized terms, appropriate in their original disciplines but likely to be seen as jargon when used loosely, especially outside the field. Before you use technical language, make sure it is intelligible to your audience and appropriate to the discipline and subject. Make sure there is no plainer word with the same meaning. Always give consideration to:
Excessively abstract language is imprecise, lifeless, and hard to read. Consider the following sentence, taken from a student paper:
All through this experience, however, he is aware of his position relative to good and evil; his cognizance of this and his subsequent conduct leave no doubt as to his desire for good.
Although the context would help to clarify the meaning, the sentence itself loses clarity through abstraction. Who or what is it about? It describes someone (unidentified) who has had an "experience" (undefined), who is not only "aware of his position" but "cognizant" of it as well (redundant, since "cognizant" means "aware"), and whose unspecified "subsequent conduct" leaves no doubt as to his desire for good. The sentence occurred in a paper about Goethe's Faust, but reading such a description of the play would hardly lead you to suspect that Faust's "experiences" include fornication, murder, magic, forest meetings with witches and devils, and a love affair with Helen of Troy.
Writers often fall into abstraction by substituting nouns for verbs. Compare the following sentences:
The growth of New York led to conditions of crowding in certain residential neighborhoods.
As New York grew, more and more people crowded in to look for housing in a few key neighborhoods.
The second sentence has three lively verbs to the first sentence's single--and rather dull--"led to." Notice also how "growth" and "crowding" conceal "grow" and "crowd."Beware the verb "to be," which encourages overly abstract and noun-laden prose. Consider:
The crowding of New York's residential neighborhoods was a function of immigration and natural population increase in combination with the social geography of ethnic settlement.
One little verb struggles to hold 25 sprawling words together. Compare:
Even the birth rate of native New York families would have strained the city's housing stock. But when the immigrants added their numbers to the city's natural growth, certain neighborhoods nearly exploded.
Notice how sharply the second version differs from the first. In correcting for the misuse of "to be," you often improve the logic and structure of your sentence.
Substituting vivid, concrete words for abstractions will help you avoid a stylistic fault as well: the awkward repetition of likesounding endings, as in "His cognition of her renunciation of all emotion facilitated his creation."
Copyright 1996 Yale University. Revised on Monday, May 20, 1996