4.4: Formal and Informal Diction

How do I write to impress professors?

When you sit down to write, your first task is to think of your composition's purpose, audience, and form (genre). Naturally, we try to make our college essays sound elevated using words that show that we have taken these notions into consideration. There's also some general writing advice you should consider when writing for college settings:

• Unpack your contractions (don't, can't, won't = do not, can not, will not)
  • These were created to make speech quicker, not really intended for writing.
  • If you're writing to fulfill a word count, a contraction counts as one word when it's contracted (shortened with an apostrophe) or two when it is not. This should help you get that extra ten words to get from 790 to 800!
• Don't write like you'd speak to people
  • Avoid slang and colloquialisms: that beat might slap, but your stodgy professor might not know what a bop is, and since we're talking about the stodgy one, they're likely to blame you for their ignorance.
  • Avoid cliches as much as possible: these are for songs and propaganda, not for original, thought-provoking compositions!
  • Avoid rhetorical questions (they're better for speeches than for essays): how do you like it when I only ask you questions? What if I never provide the answers? Could you bear the stress and pressure of all these questions being asked of you, but you have no way to respond?
• Don't use words just because they sound fancy
  • We're impressed by your eleemosynary nature in providing bombastic examples of your linguistic exemplifications of our inflated, highly abstract, superfluous language, but vacuous and vacant diction excessively plagues developing college writers' works: get to the point.
  • Jargon is for people in your field. Explain it if you are writing for someone outside your field.
  • Avoid Latin unless you need to use it (like etcetera, which is overused)
  • Look for models in exemplary publications, like The New Yorker. When they use big words, they usually either explain them with appositives (noun phrases to describe them placed directly after the word), or they work to explain them through analogy, example, or context.
• Watch out for commonly confused terms

• 4.4.1: Neologisms

  This page provides examples of how new language forms and spreads.

• 4.4.2: Commonly Confused Terms

  This provides a comprehensive list (with examples) of words that are either confusing to use or commonly confused.

  • 4.4.2.1: Code-Switching
  • 4.4.2.2: Reflection Exercise- "Customer Service Voice"