Incorrect

Kellee Weinhold / U of Oregon’s guide to accuracy in word choice

Word Choice, part 2

Biased Language

Biased language includes the careless use of old-fashioned terms that favor one group, for example men over women, and it includes unnecessary references to someone’s sex, race, religion, age, or handicap. Solution: avoid words and descriptions that stereotype.

Examples:

Biased:	a lady doctor
Better:	a woman doctor
Best:	a doctor

Links:

Word Choice, part 3

Contradictory statements

A self-contradiction is a pair of words or statements that cannot both be true. An obviously intentional self-contradiction can have a humorous effect, but an accidental one can confuse or alienate your reader. Solution: re-read your work carefully.

Example:

Self-contradiction:	I would never go to Disneyland under any circumstances. I would only go if my editor assigned me to write a story on it.

Better:	I would never go to Disneyland unless my editor assigned me to write a story on it. (contradiction eliminated)

Better:	I would never go to Disneyland under any circumstances. Well, okay, I would only go if my editor assigned me to write a story on it. And if I got to wear one of those cool hats with the Mickey Mouse ears. (intentional contradiction for humor)

Further Reading:

In Writing Clearly: An Editing Guide (2nd edition), see page 275

Word Choice, part 4

False Friends

A false friend is a word in English that looks and sounds just like a word in another, non-English, language. False friends can cause English learners to use the wrong word and cause confusion. Solution: Use a dictionary!

Example: The Spanish word contaminación and the English word contamination are cognates, or related words, and are very close in meaning as well as sound and spelling. But in English, contamination more often refers to impurities in a small, isolated, or contained place, while pollution is more specific to contamination of the general environment.

Incorrect	Cars and factories have caused a lot of contamination.

Correct	Cars and factories have caused a lot of pollution.

Links:

”False friends”

Word Choice, part 5

Informal

Use formal language when writing an academic paper or giving a presentation. There are different levels of formality, with slang representing the most informal, contractions and idioms somewhere in the middle, and very conservative forms, which are rare in spoken English, reserved for the most formal occasions.

Solution: Observe the language of other with more experience in your field. What expressions are allowed or disallowed in different settings and occasions? Ask those who are more experienced. Be careful with expressions that you have heard in speech but have never seen in writing. Use a dictionary that provides usage notes; pay attention to warnings like slang, vulgar, popular, and familiar.

Examples:

Informal:	Residents of Jamaica and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula are digging out this week after Hurricane Dean. Dean was the first major storm of the Atlantic hurricane season and what a storm it was, Category 5.[1]

Semi-formal:	Well, that’s just sort of the climatology of Atlantic hurricanes and it varies in different parts of the world. In the southern hemisphere, you know, their summer is reversed and they got a lot of activity in, you know, February or March, so forth and so on. But that’s traditionally how it’s been.[2]

Very formal:	[W]hen a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. [3]

Further Reading:

In Writing Clearly: An Editing Guide (2nd edition), see pages 230-231, 274

Word Choice, part 7

Universally Known

Some facts are universally known and therefore do not need to be said. Stating the obvious can make you appear condescending or that you are wasting your reader’s time.

Poor word choice:	The United States, which is a country in North America, is world’s the largest per capita consumer of oil.

Better:	The United States is world’s the largest per capita consumer of oil.

Word Choice, part 8

Vague

Some words have so little meaning that they obscure your meaning, or they simply waste your reader’s time. Avoid words like people, things and stuff, and steer clear of the term et cetera (and its abbreviation, etc.). Use of such words suggests that either you have added sufficient examples or you haven’t. Solution: Replace things and people with more precise words or phrases. Eliminate et cetera once you have added sufficient examples.

Example:

Marred by vague words:	“If you took a bunch of human babies from anywhere around the world -- from Australia, New Guinea, Africa, Europe, etc. -- and scrambled the babies at birth and brought them up in any society, they'd all be able to learn the same things.”

Better:	“If you took a bunch of human babies from anywhere around the world -- from Australia, New Guinea, Africa, Europe -- and scrambled the babies at birth and brought them up in any society, they'd all be able to learn the same languages, learn how to count, learn how to use computers, learn how to make and use tools.” [4]

Word Choice, part 9

Wordy: redundant

Links:

Word Choice, part 10

Wordy: Repetitive

Links:

Word Choice, part 11

Wordy: you can say the same thing in fewer words.

Links:

Word Choice, part 12

Wordy: you can say the same thing in one word.

Examples: [5]

Wordy	Concise

unneeded luxury	luxury

final outcome	outcome

past history	history

free gift	gift

end result	result

unexpected surprise	surprise

future plans	plans

true facts	facts

Links:

Word Choice, part 13

Wordy: you can delete all these unnecessary words.

Links:

Comparatives and Superlatives

Word form, part 1

Links:

Word Formation

Word form, part 2

Compound word

Links:

English compound

Solid compound adjectives

Hyphenated compound adjectives

Hyphenation in compound verbs

Hyphen rules

Phrasal verbs

Further Reading:

In Writing Clearly: An Editing Guide (2nd edition), see page 276

In Read, Write, Edit: Grammar for College Writers, see pages 99-111, 108

In Eye on Editing 2, see pages 92-97

Word form, part 3

Use word form strategies to eliminate wordiness

Links:

Word form, part 4

Wrong or missing suffix

Incorrect

Former Microsoft employee Alice Wu’s intend was never to live in Redmond and work at Microsoft her whole life.

Correct

Former Microsoft employee Alice Wu’s intention was never to live in Redmond and work at Microsoft her whole life.

Word order, part 1

Links:

Using Do, Does, and Did

Word order, part 2

Problem with modifier order

Links:

Misplaced Modifiers

Dangling Modifiers

Further Reading:

In Writing Clearly: An Editing Guide (2nd edition), see pages 152, 155

In Read, Write, Edit: Grammar for College Writers, see page 29

In Eye on Editing 2, see pages 92-97

Word order, part 3

Problem with adverb position

Further Reading:

In Writing Clearly: An Editing Guide (2nd edition), see pages 152-153, 156, 157-189

In Read, Write, Edit: Grammar for College Writers, see page 29

In Eye on Editing 2, see pages 92-97

Direct & Indirect Questions

Word order, part 4

Problem with word order in a direct question

Further Reading:

In Writing Clearly: An Editing Guide (2nd edition), see page 154

In Read, Write, Edit: Grammar for College Writers, see pages 63, 113

In Eye on Editing 2, see pages 92-97

Links:

Word order, part 5

Problem with word order in a noun clause

Further Reading:

In Writing Clearly: An Editing Guide (2nd edition), see pages 148-160

In Read, Write, Edit: Grammar for College Writers, see pages 63,113

In Eye on Editing 2, see pages 92-97

Word order, part 6

This word/phrase should be moved to a different sentence position.

Further Reading:

In Eye on Editing 2, see pages 92-97

Links:

The Order of a Sentence

Word order, part 7

Words in this passage should be re-ordered.

Further Reading:

In Eye on Editing 2, see pages 92-97

Links:

The Order of a Sentence