Revising Diction

Re-evaluating and revising diction in a piece of writing

In considering the qualities of effective diction, you have to evaluate ways of expressing ideas, and your evaluation must include a great deal of revision.

In this stage of local revision, you need to change your emphasis from expressing yourself effectively to rooting out the ineffective.

You should work through your text slowly, looking for words that don't fully express your purpose. Four major weaknesses to watch for are vagueness, jargon, triteness, and ineffective imagery.

Imagery: The Third Quality of Effective Diction

Imagery has two general meanings when applied to diction: the images or pictures that concrete words sometimes suggest and figures of speech such as similes and metaphors.

The first meaning includes the pictorial quality of phrases such as an anvil's edge, green belts, popping up like corn.



The chief element in all figures of speech is an imaginative comparison in which dissimilar things are described as having a meaningful similarity.

The writer, by thus linking the unfamiliar with the familiar, creates a context in which the reader may more easily or clearly understand a new aspect of the subject or new information and ideas.

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Writing.

That wonderful craft of word-assembly, transferring thoughts to print.

Writing is a career for some, therapy for many, and enjoyment for others. In most cases, it’s “all the above”.

However, all good writers are—or should be diction-savvy wordsmiths.

After crafting a draft, we read over it and find ourselves crossing out sentences that don’t quite say what we want them to say; some sentences don’t belong at all.

Specificity: Another Quality of Effective Diction

Specificity

Contrary to theoretic argument, general and specific ARE opposite terms. Words are general when they refer not to individual things but to groups or classes: tree, father, book.

By contrast, words are specific when they refer to individual persons, objects, or events: The Magnolia tree, Emily’s father, I read “My Antonia”.  

Technically, a general term may be made more specific with a modifier that restricts the reference to a particular member of the group or class.

Most general	Less general	Still less general	Specific
Vegetation	grass	elm tree	The grass in my yard is tall.
Dress	short	mini dress	Jan’s mini dress was cute.
Container	plastic bottle	milk jug	don’t buy milk in plastic jugs.
Flowers	roses	yellow roses	She planted roses in the patio area.

Appropriateness: One of the Three Qualities of Effective Diction

Appropriateness

Words are appropriate when they are suited to your subject, targeted audience, and purpose.

Targeting certain audiences with “unfavorable” analysis can sometimes be disconcerting because readers (other than your intended audience) will respond “unfavorably”. 

On the other hand, your intended readership responds favorably. It’s the “two-sided” coin predicament. 

“Response” (in the context of favorable or unfavorable) means you clearly conveyed your message, keeping in mind that there are over eight billion people on our planet.  

Disagreement or a different point of view (depending on the subject) is to be expected.

Example of writing and delivering to a specific “audience”: