- pronouns
- nouns
- verbs
When you are revising work on a "word choice" level, look for a words connotations and for its precision. You want to choose the best words for the clearest understanding.
- Check all your nouns in one read through...
- Check all your pronouns...switch some out
- Check all verbs, making sure you have the most active verbs
Below is a lesson from February 17, 2016, two months ago:
A Word Means In Two Basic Ways
- Denotation: the dictionary meaning a word holds; its surface meaning.
- Connotation: extra meaning a word carries, or “suggests”; the meaning may be cultural, thematically related to rest of poem’s content. Also, a word or phrase may depend on a reader understanding alternate meanings in dictionary, sound-relations to other words (insure/ensure), context of usage, & other credible connections of the words to the rest of the text.
- Writers use figures of speech to create connotations
- Metaphors
- Similes
- Allusions
- Hyperbole
- Idioms and regionalisms
- & many more
A Writer Must Understand the Difference Between Precision and Accuracy
- Accuracy: the word choice has correct denotative meaning
- Precision: the word choice has connotations that meet the action/situation, including tone.
- Examples of precision: The scalpel slices. The ax hacks.
- Examples of imprecision: The scalpel hacks!
- If a word/phrase doesn’t seem to fit the situation in a published piece, reflect upon why the author may have used an imprecise word/phrase.
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