Self-Review: Quick Diction Edit (in-class 9/28)

1. Read your essay and consider your AUDIENCE (college, academic). Look for any words or phrases that are slang (such as "cool"), colloquial words and expressions (such as "fixing to"), and cliches (such as "easier said than done" and "better late than never"). Circle these words and phrases. After you have read through the entire paper, replace any slang or colloquial words or expressions with standard written English. Replace any cliches with original expressions.

2. CONCEPT NOUNS: Nouns that express a concept are commonly used in bad writing instead of verbs that tell what someone did. For example: "The common reaction is incredulous laughter" or "Bemused cynicism isn't the only response to the old system" or "The current campus hostility is a symptom of the change." What is so eerie is that these sentences have no people in them. They have no working verbs, and they contain abstractions that the reader can't visualize. Turn these cold sentences around. Get people doing things. For example: "Most people just laugh with disbelief" or "Some people respond to the old system by turning cynical; others say..."

(the above paraphrase of a passage from William Zinsser's On Writing Well)

Go back through your essay and underline and concept nouns that you used in your essay. Replace them or rewrite the sentences so that you "get people doing things."

3. Read the paper again and draw boxes around general or blah nouns and adjectives. Look especially for general nouns such as "thing," "aspect,"and "kind," and adjectives that describe size and appearance, such as "large," "small," and "nice." After you have boxed in these general words and replace them with more lively, concrete synonyms. You may use a thesaurus.

4. Read the paper again and circle all forms of the verb "to be" (be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been). Replace at least 1/2 the verbs with more lively verbs (sometimes this will require that you reword the sentence).

5. Read the paper again and draw brackets around the expletives "there is" and "there are" whenever you see them at the beginning of a sentence. Reword these sentences to eliminate the expletives.

6. Give the paper a last read for diction, and underline any biased language -- sexist, racist, or otherwise prejudiced. Replace any biased words or phrases you discover.