Now that your planning stage is complete, you can begin writing your draft. Your writing should be organized, developed, accurate, and original. During the entire time you draft your body paragraphs, keep in mind what your focus should be. By the time you finish writing a body paragraph, your reader should clearly understand why you believe that your topic sentence is true.

One way that you can create strong supporting ideas for a body paragraph is by carefully choosing the vocabulary that best represents your ideas.

Because descriptive writing is characterized by detailed and interesting illustrations, word choice is a very important writing skill. For this writing practice, we will focus on incorporating new and more specific words to emphasize your meaning.

A challenge with introducing new vocabulary into your writing is appropriately including a new word into a sentence. There are three important parts of word knowledge to consider before including the word: part of speech, connotations vs definitions, and collocations.

Synonyms

Think of how in the fictional books you read in English the word said might be replaced with screamed, sighed, commanded, told, whispered, or claimed. These words all have the basic definition of a verb for speak, but they carry extra meaning that gives more information to the reader.

Be aware that some vocabulary may also have an expression (phrase) that could be used instead of a single word. For example, someone may say excited, but the expression I'm pumped or I'm looking forward to it or He's bouncing off the walls also mean the same thing. 

One step that may be helpful is making a list of adjectives and adverbs that more accurately describe the person and their impact on others. A thesaurus is a great place to look for synonyms:

• • https://edtechbooks.org/-xJIdG 
  • https://www.thesaurus.com/ 

Part of Speech

Most of the words you encounter when looking for synonyms or translating words from your first language will be in the same part of speech: noun, verb, adjective, adverb. However, it is possible that you will find a word that changes to a different word form. 

Now that you've practiced looking at descriptive words and synonyms in isolation, you need to start thinking about how the words are actually used in setences. 

As mentioned in the previous exercise, it is important to check that the part of speech of your synonym is the same. This is the first step to knowing how to include it in a new sentence.

Sometimes, a synonym that uses a different part of speech is the best word for the job. Other times, you may find that the sentence you want to write would be most clear if you change the form of the word on your list.

Connotation

The word synonym can be deceptive. As mentioned with the word said, a synonym can add meaning. Sometimes this additional meaning, or connotation, is clear in the definition.

• For example, the additional meaning of whispered compared to said is directly explained in the definition: to speak softly
• Take a look at the dictionary definitions of the words say and tell. In this case, the difference is not as obvious.

When the dictionary does not provide enough information to know the connotation of a new word, the additional meaning can often be found by viewing example sentences. Look at the example sentences below for said and state. Can you recognize a difference in meaning now?

• He said he will be home at 8.
• He told me about his family.

After looking at a few additional example sentences, you may come to the conclusion that tell has an additional level of detail.

The Grammar of Vocabulary

In addition to knowing the part of speech and full meaning of a word, you will need to be aware of any grammar patterns that are connected to that word. The part of speech is one step in this direction, but it does not give you the full information about how the word is commonly included in actual written English. 

A collocation is a word that frequently occurs together with a target vocabulary word. Likely as you have memorized verbs, you will have noticed that there is a particular preposition that goes with it.

• For example: agree with, talk about, wait for, or hope for

There are also times that a collocation (particularly a preposition or adverb) can create a phrasal verb. A phrasal verb creates a completely new meaning when the words are found together.

• For example: make up, get over, take over, move on, go under, or jump in

Because a collocation can either be required to complete the grammatical unit or can signal a change in meaning, it is important to look for clues about a new vocabulary word before trying to include it in a sentence. 

Word Choice Review

Throughout this chapter of the textbook, you have looked at how to select vocabulary that provides more specific detail than the low-hanging fruit* of the most common words of English. As you write your short descriptive essay, pay special attention to the words you choose. Is the meaning clear and direct? Is the word form used appropriately for the grammar of your sentence? Have you checked to ensure any new vocabulary words match the intended meaning?

*Low-hanging fruit: obvious or easy choice or action

Exercises