10 Words to Avoid When Writing
Writing is an amalgamation of art and competence. The art emerges from conversing, meditating, reading and lots of writing. The competence is mainly a technique. Some approaches are complicated, while others are elementary and immediately build up your art of writing.
The best way to strengthen your writing skills is to avoid the areas that make your writing weak and shaky. We’ve recognized 10 words that almost always dwindles writing.
- Some
By description, the word ‘some’ is unclear. Avoid using vague words in your writing as it may lead to fluff and flawed result. If you wish to become a better author, avoid using ‘some’ and all of its cousins in your write ups.
- Really
This word is independent and doesn’t add any worth to the reading experience. For example, ‘spending time on this cruise is a really great idea’. Here, the word ‘really’ doesn’t add any worth to the sentence as a really great idea is the same as a great idea. However, you can always use ‘spending time on this cruise is an excellent idea’.
- Very
Let’s admit it. Very is the most ineffective word in the English vocabulary. The word is self-contained and just like ‘really’ doesn’t add any value to the sentence. Mark Twain recommended that authors could replace ‘very’ with the word ‘damn’ to add worth to the writing.
Moreover, you can also look for the powerful variant of the word to make you writing even more impressive and worthy. For instance, you can substitute ‘scorching’ for very/damn hot.
- That‘That’ is an effective word for including accuracy, but if you think that a sentence still makes sense after eliminating ‘that,’ erase it. ‘That’ is a good word for adding accuracy. However, if the sentence still makes a sense after deleting it, remove it. For instance, this is the best article that I’ve ever read or this is the best article I’ve ever read.
- Then
The frequent use of ‘then’ may sound redundant or even childish. We would suggest you get rid of this word if you think the use of it will make the sentence look juvenile. However, if unavoidable, you can replace it with ‘and’ instead.
- Avoid Dialogue Tags
Dialogue tags such as ‘said’, ‘asked’, ‘replied’ and the like bog down your pacing and confuse your audience. You can always use these words in the first few lines of your content, but once you declared who said those first few lines, the audience can chase the communication to and fro themselves.
- Feel, Ponder, realize and Thought
When you include any of these words, you’re pulling out audience from the self-analysis. Instead of adding worthless words, you can show the emotions through actions.
- Sort Of
Using words like ‘sort of’ or ‘kind of’ annoys your readers. The reason is you aren’t specifying the actual logic and doing nothing but to confuse your audience with sort of perplexing arguments. Try to include exact descriptions backed by authentic references so as to give your readers an idea about your command over the subject.
- Used To
Keeping your content sweet and simple is one of the ways to grab your reader’s interest. Avoid using words like ‘used to’ to bypass repetition. However, you can always substitute it with a past tense verb to give worth to your writing.
- Avoid Adverbs
Adverbs like lightly, quickly, truthfully and the like do nothing for the reader’s knowledge.Always remember, effective writing is specific and always provides a clear image of the content to the audience.Despite the fact that adverbs give verbs a hint of signification, but after all, it’s only a hint. Avoid adverbs if possible.
The mentioned examples exhibit poor application of these words. However, the fact is, you may also find appropriate uses of these terms. As a matter of fact, some of these words goes perfectly with some situations. The purpose of your content, tone and your target audience will decide whether or not include these terms in your writing.
In case you aren’t too sure about the usage of these words, we would suggest you to avoid using them.
Good editors and proofreaders always keep a strict check for these annoying and confusing words so as to give readers an opportunity to enjoy the powerful and more meaningful content.
You too can take a cue from this post and by avoiding these bothering terms can curate a better content that can communicate your idea well to your target audience. Keep improving, keep writing!
