Tips and Tricks in Word Selection for Writers
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): TomKin Consulting LLC.
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020
What’s in a word? Is it letters compacted together punctuated by spaces? Is it the meaning implied by the sender? Is it the meaning interpreted by the receiver? Is there objective or subjective truths about words to be found?
For writers, words are everything. It’s the difference between an audience and no audience. More precisely, it’s the difference between the right audience and the wrong audience, including no audience. Word selection should be fit for the intended audience of the writer.
What is a word?
Do you remember the old phrase “a word is a word is a word”? That’s probably false. Every word demarcates meaning in some sense. It draws a line in the sand. It references something. So, one word is like another word and unlike still another word.
That makes “a word is a word is a word” untrue. Words reference, ideas, people, objects, things, locations, relationships, and other words. Words encapsulate meaning. Meaning comes from unpacking the words themselves.
To pick a correct term in the right place and in a suitable ordering, this makes all the difference. Bad writing and good writing are contextual. Same with good words and bad words. It’s all about suitability.
The terms to make a difference in the long-term
If you were invited to a classroom of 7th graders at the end of elementary school or in the midst of middle school, there’s expectations. There are behavioural expectations. There are dress codes. There are rules of the culture to follow.
For an invited speaker there, they must play by the social rules. Similarly, the kids will have a particular mentality. They will have a specific skill set. Their knowledge will be limited. Their capacity for understanding will be limited too.
Their grade level is limited because they are limited. Your message should target this mentality, comprehension level. Your verbiage, patois, and word choice, can reflect this. Over time, the people attracted to this message will be the right people.
If you want the correct comprehension of the message, then you need to listen up. When you make the message unsuitable, you get poor results. Kids in 7th grade deserve a message fit for them.
Graduate students in evolutionary biology deserve another message. A more advanced language using more precision, length of sentence, and, probably, incorporating Latin terms italicized. However, most people aren’t 7th graders. Fewer are probably graduate students in evolutionary biology.
Most people are in the sweet spot, as they’re the general public. This general audience will want an average message with average complexity and average vocabulary. No more, no less, the Goldilocks of word choice. Your meaning will come across to the general audience with clarity.
What is the relevance of word selection to keeping the right audience?
This clarity of message is the intention behind the proper word choice. To your audience, this clarity is so crucial. Sometimes, they might not know what the heck you’re talking about anyhow. Your words can be right, but your content is esoteric. It’s obscure.
It is this sort of faraway orbiting stuff. No one cares about it. You can control the content discussed in a particular article. You can make a specific change to the content. You can be restricted depending on the outlet. This makes the overall things possible limited.
However, in word choice, you have complete freedom and choice. You have to make the language as engaging and lively as possible. You have to adapt the language within the content, the outlet, and the intended audience. It’s possible. Because many have done it before.
The difference between an “apple” and an “Adam’s apple”
Once you have an idea of the content, outlet, and intended audience, your word choice should be a sure fit. Your audience may, or may not, know everything. In fact, they most likely don’t. I mean in regards to their questions needing answering.
So, they’re coming to you. That’s a big responsibility. It’s not really acknowledged that much. However, it is a big chance to shine or to flop. Your word choices will make or break loyalty. The loyalty of the intended audience in you.
If you want to keep them, you have to write suitably. It’s the difference in precision between an “apple” and an “Adam’s apple.” One is a fruit. Another is a common marker of an adult male. Now, imagine this copied over every possible topic, you have room to mess up.
In fact, your areas to make mistakes, by definition, are infinite. They’re infinitely more than the room to make it. Because to “make it,” you have to write for the audience. You have to pick the suiting words.
However, if you hit the mark, your audience will begin to trust you. You become a trusted resource. Someone considered reliable, serious, and a subject matter expert. Legitimate authority on marketing, SEO, and online writing. Audiences will notice. And they’ll stay.
Any trust will take time. That’s why the long view must be in view. That’s why the specific audience members must be accounted. If you write a beautiful, information packed message, and if for the wrong people, it’ll fall flat. It’ll flop. Not a pretty sight for the writer or a pretty site for the reader.
What does this mean for a writer?
When a reader comes to an article, they’re most often scanning the page. Giving a look here, a peak there, a look-see back-and-forth, it’s a quick process. Rapid processing of relevant information. It’s picking and choosing as necessary for the purposes of the scanner.
If you’re luckier, you’ll get viewing. Audiences who view the title, some of the body text. They’re working harder. Because the material is worth it. If the material is garbage, it won’t acquire the light of the day.
A further upgrade is the tried-and-true believers, the readers. Our favourite people in the whole, wide world. Those who take the time. They search for an answer. They come to a relevant website. They like the title, the introduction, the answer paragraph, and the in-depth content.
Every. Single. Word. Counts.
When you make every single word count, it shows. When you write fluff, it shows. Words imbue meaning. They bring forward so much. They should mean a lot. Because our most profound statements from “I love you” to “I do” are simply those: words.
They weigh something without weight. They evoke emotion from the text on a screen to words whispered in the air. To a writer, every word, every sentence, should be considered, precise. It’s one of the hopes, not necessarily the every-time achievement.
However, if you take the time to pick the right word suitable for the audience, then you’ve got it. You’ll likely get it all. You’ll acquire scanners. Those could turn into viewers, even readers. Heck, they could become devoted consumers of your every word.
That’s how much people care about words. They’ll take food money to buy a book. People have died for words as they have died for love. If your words matter to you, then they will probably matter more to the reader. Because it shows that you care.
For a writer, a life of precision in words is subjective, relative. If you know the audience sufficiently over time, then you will know the proper address to them. How they speak, what things trigger them, their general way of reading a text.
This focus on precise word selection for marketing and blogs should be core. It’s the main domain of flexibility. Outside of it, you’re constricted. It’s a particular company. It’s a particular domain of audience interest.
Words are fixed characters, relative meanings, and infinite meaning in relationships. You can only build the expertise and skill to shine with practice and time. But it’ll be worth all the effort in the need. Because you’ll have created something truly worthwhile.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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