Dec 012015
This article was posted by on Facebook by Brian Spears, who noted, “This is why first year writing reads like first year writing.” Encouraging students to vary their word usage seems to be a contentions issue. It is my (admittedly very limited) experience that it is the overuse of these “dead words” that defines freshman writing, not the overuse of a thesaurus. At the level of ENC 1101, I feel that students should be encouraged to experiment with vocabulary, and they should also be taught the pitfalls of randomly selecting synonyms. The two are not exclusive pedagogical aims.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/use-more-expressive-words-teachers-bark-beseech-implore-1448835350