Editing 2: Making Your Writing Concise & Vivid English 111 December 16, 2014

Writing Vividly: Word Choice Find vague or imprecise words, words that don’t quite communicate the idea you mean, and replace them with more precise ones. Use a Thesaurus and Dictionary in combination Think carefully (rhetorically) about usage since in a thesaurus, though the words might be similar in meaning, they often have different connotations or contexts in which it makes sense to use them. www.dictionary.com; www.thesaurus.com; www.m-w.com, and elsewhere. Think carefully about Repetition vs. Variation.

Writing Vividly: Word Choice Look for vague and/or judgmental word choices and replace them with specific word choices, descriptions, and/or specific reasons: I was having a productive day. I was having a lucky day. The waves that day were perfect for surfing. I was having a really good day. My teacher was not happy Though she kept a tepid smile, they way she spoke through her teeth revealed her anger. He was a bad roommate He was untidy, played loud music late at night while I was trying to sleep, and always had his girlfriend over.

Writing Vividly: Concrete Language To make your writing more vivid, lively, interesting, and readable, rephrase your sentences, using language that is more specific (refers to a specific time and place) and concrete (refers to things you can see, taste, touch, hear, and smell). Ask yourself, “What does this look/sound/smell/feel/taste like?” Examples: A period of unfavorable weather set in. It rained every day for a week. He showed satisfaction as he took possession of his well-earned reward.  He grinned as he pocketed the five dollar bill he earned by his sweat. The look on his face told me that Dad wasn’t happy. Dad’s nose flared and his temples wrinkled. His lips stretched thin and straight across his face, and a vein pulsed on his forehead.

Writing Vividly: Passive Voice To improve word economy and make your writing style sound more lively, use active voice rather than passive voice. Passive Voice occurs in a sentence that contains a “to be” verb, either independently or along with another verb.  ”To Be Verbs”: be, being, been, am, are, is, was, were Simply look for these “to be” verbs and try to rephrase your sentence and find new verbs that will help you avoid them.    Also see http://www.aztekera.com/tools/tobeverbs.php , which will help you find “to be” verbs in your text so that you can remove them (It doesn’t catch all of them though).

Writing Vividly: Passive Voice My first visit to Boston will always be remembered. I will always remember my first visit to Boston. There were a great number of dead leaves lying on the ground. Dead leaves covered the ground. The reason he left college was that his health became impaired. Failing health compelled him to leave college. It was not long before he was very sorry that he had said what he had. He soon regretted his words. At dawn, the crowing of a rooster could be heard. At dawn, the rooster crowed.

Writing Vividly: Removing Clichés Another strategy to improve the vividness of your writing is to identify and remove clichés, replacing them with more descriptive language. Clichés are overused expressions and stock phrases that we often use simply because they are easy to reach for. Clichés may sound descriptive but because people have heard them so much, they have lost their vividness since readers don’t actually think about what they mean. Examples: between a rock and a hard place It’s not rocket science the fact of the matter is thinking outside the box on a weekly basis More than you can shake a stick at

Writing Vividly: Removing Clichés In the nick of time, the bell rang. Suddenly, the bell rang. That principal was as old as the hills, I tell you. That principle was ancient. Even his tweed sport coat and tie looked dusty. I don’t know what they saw in each other. They were entirely incompatible. Clearly, I wasn’t going to get out of this without a suspension, at least. I saw the writing on the wall.