HowToWrite > Trivial Adjectives

A lot of people add in adjectives to give their writing flavor. Adjectives are good! But choose meaningful ones.

For instance, I often see the phrase "effectively communicated" on cover letters and resumes -- as in "I effectively communicated with a wide variety of stakeholders." Well, I should hope you were effective in your communication! (If you weren't, you probably shouldn't mention the activity in your job search.)

A good way to see if the adjective you've chosen is trivial is to write the sentence with the same adjective, just negated, and see if the sentence is absurd. For instance, as above, "I ineffectively communicated with a wide variety of stakeholders." Since this sentence is absurd, we can see that the writer has chosen an adjective that describes not a skill or a feature but, in fact, a minimum standard of competence. Aspire to more.

There's nothing wrong with dropping your adjectives, especially if you're short of space. While your writing may be drier, people often appreciate straightforwardness; and, hopefully, the content of your writing will be interesting in and of itself.

If you decide you really need an adjective there, try something that has some meaning. "I regularly communicated with a wide variety of stakeholders". "I independently communicated with a wide variety of stakeholders." Or, use a short phrase to illustrate some additional information: "I communicated, using diverse media, with a wide variety of stakeholders." Note that all of those survive the negation test, and all also provide additional, useful information.


This page last modified on October 12, 2005, at 11:44 PM

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