Being concrete and specific in your writing helps ensure readers can visualize what you're writing about.
BEING CONCRETE AND SPECIFIC
oncrete nouns refer to or name particular things, ideas, or actions.
They vary in how specific they are. For example, you can move from identifying a broad category of entities to being highly specific. So the noun "person" is less specific than the name of that person.
The term "person" is a very broad noun. This can be more specific if identified as a skilled laborer, or a carpenter or a person named James.
Being concrete and specific in your writing helps ensure readers can visualize what you're writing about.
Typically, concrete words answer questions like who, what, where, when, why, or how. In other words, they provide concrete information.
More abstract nouns name entities that aren't easy to visualize or sense. They often refer to qualities and ideas – for example, management, culture, or freedom. Although you may sometimes use them, they can be vague and have less impact.
Often replacing more abstract words with concrete ones can make your writing clearer and easier to follow. So the abstract word "individual" is replaced by the name of the individual you're referring to – James.
The abstract word role is made more specific by using the concrete word editor. The abstract word area is made more specific by using the words children's books.
Consider an e-mail from a manager to a team member. In this example, the original message is vague. It merely states a complaint needs to be resolved, it doesn't explain what the complaint is. Although the manager might have spoken to the team member about the problem previously, it's always better to be specific and informative when sending a written message. In this way, you avoid any confusion about which problem is being referred to.
The vague e-mail states
"That problem needs to be resolved."
The more informative message states:
"The customer complaint regarding a missing page in one of our history textbooks needs to be addressed by the end of this week."
QUESTIONS
Which are concrete nouns in the following sentence?
"That process will finish in two weeks. Then software testing will begin, and other areas will be checked."
Which revision of the sample sentence applies the technique of using concrete and specific language?
"That process will finish sometime soon and testing of the areas will begin."
I have been teaching and training agents, team leaders, supervisors, managers and admins of call centers and other businesses in BPO related fields. This series, comes as a result of that experience. I have more than 4,000 modules that I plan on sharing here. This is # 003-03
