“Malapropism” (sometimes also referred to as Dogberryism) If you saw your name associated with the terms above, you’d be forgiven if your first thought is to immediately visit your favorite health website and see what type of dreadful disease you may have. Fear not—the term malapropism has nothing to do with a rare disease. It …
We’re going to be diving into something a little bit different today. Instead of a post about how to write a killer conclusion or what symbolism you can find in The Scarlet Letter, we’re going to discuss inclusive language. Language is how we communicate our ideas. And the words we use aren’t just important when …
I’m pretty sure we’ve all texted someone and experienced autocorrect turning our statements into nonsensical garbage or something totally unintended. You know the types of texts. “Meet me at the library” somehow turns into “Meet me at the liberty,” and “I’m headed to karate class this afternoon” becomes “I’m headed to karaoke glass this after …
If you’re a rooster and you consider yourself king of the hen house, you can’t just casually wander around with the rest of the chickens. You need to strut your stuff. You need to walk with authority and crow like you mean it! Likewise, if you’re writing a paper, you might consider yourself king (or …
Here’s a list of concrete words: Bull float Expansion joint Forms Screed Trowel Rebar Yes, these are literally words related to concrete, but that’s most likely not what your prof means when he tells you to focus on concrete language. Keep in mind, though, that these words could be considered concrete language because they’re very …
Have you ever had to meet a specific word count for an essay and found yourself coming up short? Did you “revise” by simply adding words here and there trying to stretch it out? Or have you ever written a paper and it seemed like it was full of fluff, rather than strong content? These …
Despite what our mothers may have told us when we were testing the more “colorful” side of language as children—raise your hand if you know what soap tastes like—there’s no such thing as a “bad word.” There are, however, words that are inappropriate for a given situation. This not only means that you should avoid …
A transition is a “passage from one state, stage, subject, or place to another.” At least that’s what Merriam-Webster’s dictionary says. But that thing’s only been around for like 184 years or so, so I’d like to amend it a bit. Instead, let’s say a transition is “a passage from one state, stage, subject, place, …
Whenever you’re writing an essay for a class, to get into your dream school, or for some other reason besides “just for the heck of it,” you usually need to write a minimum number of words or pages. And while there are probably topics you could write about forever — an ode to your pillow …
Good transition words guide your reader from one thought in your writing to the next. They allow you to arrange your ideas in a clear and meaningful way that the reader can easily follow. If you think of writing as being a type of journey, you can think of transition words as being like sign …