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We Need to Use “Concrete Words” and Evoke Images When We Write

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I was reading Lawrence Krauss’ article in the Wall Street Journal this weekend; it jolted me.  He stated “You have to lie” when you write about science. While he was certainly trying to get our attention, you had to read his entire piece to get the whole idea. (By the way, that is a good practice for everything.  I have found many news items providing the exact opposite impression in the first paragraph than is obtained by completing the piece.  Yes, I know that means it’s poorly written.  But, I still want to know what the news is!) Krauss correctly noted that math is the lingua franca for science and engineering; when writing popular articles about these matters, we must employ metaphors; these unfortunately lack the detail mathematical representations can provide.  Strauss was advocating the use of proper metaphors when we explain concepts to non-technical individuals; the need to impart a good picture (physical or mental) for what we are describing to insure the matter is understood.

When I was young student, I was taught that I had to hear and/or read the material three times.  This was the only way to be positive the material could be easily recalled.  So, as a professor, I made sure that I used different examples and verbiage than would be found in the textbook, as an added advantage.  (How often do YOU want to hear the same exact thing?)

Nowadays, however, it seems that we need to read certain items 8 or 9 times- but not because we are getting dumber (although…), but because we are being provided documents that are filled with gobblydegook, corporate speak, and the like. We need to insure that what we write is well-written.  One way we can do that is to use “concrete words”…  According to Allan Paivio, such words evoke images in our brain.  Paivio reported that concrete nouns and adjectives were easier to recall (2 to 3 times as likely) than the abstract choices that seem to be peppered throughout our writing.

In our design firm, we make sure that we use schematics and diagrams (some of us actually can even draw) to communicate concepts to one another. If we can’t develop valid diagrams, then we need to spend more time providing the metaphor for common understanding. We have a variety of programs to help us- Vizio, GeoGebra, Diagram Studio, and ChemOffice, among others, but there are some great products on the web (creately.com and lucidchart.com) that you can use to share your ideas.

We all need to make sure our ideas are clearly expressed.  When we do that, our writing will not only be memorable, but it will take less time to be studied (3 times, and not 8 or 9) by our staff, our friends, and our intended readers.

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238 thoughts on “We Need to Use “Concrete Words” and Evoke Images When We Write”

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