Word Choice




Certain words carry distinct emotions.  Repeated words create emphasis.  Figurative words produce powerful images.


At times, a phrase will catch your attention.  You may ask yourself, why did the author use those particular words or that exact phrase?  How does this particular wording bring me to closer understand the author's meaning?


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Consider these elements as you read:


1.  Word Choice

Note the powerful words -- what connotations or feelings are evoked by particular words?


2.  Word Placement

What words introduce or conclude the idea discussed?


3.  Emphasis

What points are emphasized? Are words repeated? Which sentences are more heavily weighted?


4.  Organization

What organizational structure is used? How does the structure affect the idea being discussed?

 

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Practice
What does this author hope to share by the descriptions and phrases used in this passage?  


 

Song of the Humpback

     Each spring, the humpback whales reappear in Hawaii and once more begin to sing.  Each new year, they have new themes in their repertoire and have dropped many of the former songs.  Sometimes the songs are so loud that the whole hull of your boat resonates and you can hear ethereal moans and cries coming mysteriously, as from nowhere.  If you dive into the peerlessly blue water and swim down, you may, with luck, see the singer hanging in the water below you, a cobalt shape in the sapphire depths. The sound penetrates your body, making the air in your sinuses vibrate in sympathy, as though you were sitting within the widest pipe of the largest cathedral organ, and the whole of your tissues are soaked in sound.


1.  What is the purpose of phrases like "the whole hull resonates," "ethereal moans," and "sound penetrates your body, making the air in your sinuses vibrate in sympathy"?

A.  to persuade the reader that the songs are noisy 
B.  to help the reader imagine the quality of the sound 
C.  to explain how sound travels through water 
D.  to compare the whale's songs with human's songs


2.  What general purpose is most likely promoted by the word choices, point of view, and tone of this paragraph?

A.  to provide scientific analysis of whale song rhythms and meters  
B.  to share the mystical sensation of hearing a humpback's song 
C.  to analyze the source and object of humpback songs 
D.  to persuade more people to take up oceanographic study


. 

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Word choice is not haphazard or arbitrary. 

Consider the effect of word choices to pick up on an author's purpose and main ideas. 




Answer Key

Song of the Humpback

1.  B is correct.
Choice A is incorrect because there is no attempt to persuade in paragraph four.  Choice B is correct; the purpose of paragraph 4 is to describe the sounds made by whales and the use of imagery stimulates the readers' imaginations.  Choice C is incorrect because the passage contains no explanation of how sound travels through water.  Choice D is incorrect; the paragraph contains no comparisons.

2.  B

Details from the scene suggest that the author has directly experienced the whale's song up close, but the author uses second person ("you") to bring you, the reader, into the scene.  Combined with word choices identified in question 1, the overall emotion is one of awe and wonder.  The writer wants to convey and share these experiences.