by Maddi Demaree<\/p>\n
In my time as a tutor, I\u2019ve discovered that sometimes a few quick fixes can drastically change the tone of someone\u2019s writing. To change the tone from chatty or informal to more scholarly and professional, it helps to eliminate words or phrases such as \u201creally,\u201d \u201cvery,\u201d and \u201ca lot,\u201d which are usually symptoms of a lack of clarity. More than that, they show a lack of specificity, which is prized in scholarly writing.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s one example:<\/p>\n
1a) While there were a lot<\/u><\/strong> of factors involved in each side\u2019s participation in escalating the conflict, one that is not often discussed is the actual living conditions and livelihood of the Irish people.<\/em><\/p>\n While \u201ca lot\u201d is rather innocuous, it doesn\u2019t really have a place in academic writing. Somewhat better alternatives might<\/em> be these: \u201cmany,\u201d \u201ca number of,\u201d or \u201ccountless.\u201d But if you know the number, state it!<\/p>\n 1b) While there were countless<\/u><\/strong> factors involved in each side\u2019s participation in escalating the conflict, one that is not often discussed is the actual living conditions and livelihood of the Irish people.<\/em><\/p>\n Let\u2019s look at another passage:<\/p>\n 2a) Great Britain really<\/strong> <\/span>wanted to quickly gain control of the situation, so they suspended self-government in Northern Ireland. This took the power away from the elected Irish officials who possessed a knowledge of the varying sources of the conflict. This was their attempt to paste a very<\/u><\/strong> hastily constructed \u201cpeace\u201d over the whole ordeal.<\/em><\/p>\n In this passage, \u201creally\u201d and \u201cvery\u201d are unnecessary because the words \u201chastily\u201d and \u201cwanted\u201d can stand on their own without emphasis. The only time the words \u201creally\u201d or \u201cvery\u201d are appropriate in writing is to give emphasis to a word that does not have a stronger replacement. For example, instead of using \u201creally hungry,\u201d you can say \u201cfamished\u201d or instead of \u201cvery tired,\u201d you might say \u201cfatigued.\u201d<\/p>\n Other times you can just remove the troublesome words. Here, the passage has the same impact without \u201creally\u201d or \u201cvery\u201d.<\/p>\n 2b) Great Britain wanted to quickly gain control of the situation, so they suspended self-government in Northern Ireland. This took the power away from the elected Irish officials who possessed a knowledge of the varying sources of the conflict. This was their attempt to paste a hastily constructed \u201cpeace\u201d over the whole ordeal.<\/em><\/p>\n Eliminating these colloquial words and phrases will immediately help take your writing from vague and general to specific and powerful.<\/p>\n Maddi Demaree is a passionate education major who loves helping others to realize, refine, and regain their innate writing abilities.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Maddi Demaree In my time as a tutor, I\u2019ve discovered that sometimes a few quick fixes can drastically change the tone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,21,109],"tags":[92,153,56,154,125],"class_list":["post-1739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-clarity","category-revision","category-writeherewritenowwriteon","tag-editing","tag-specificity","tag-style","tag-tone","tag-word-choice"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5DI6r-s3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1739"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1742,"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1739\/revisions\/1742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}