Writing Exercises - Subtle Ways to Show What You are Telling
Show readers what you’re telling them using means other than examples
There are many ways to show what you are telling your audience about. Examples, such as those discussed in the exercise on the Human Face, are one way. So is using tables, figures and images. However, showing can be more subtle than that; you can accomplish it through the verbs and adjectives you use, too. In Chapter 3 I discuss four ways of showing through your language choices (first identified by Helen Sword [2012]):
1. Simile
2. Metaphor
3. Allusion
4. Personification
Identify an article that you really like for the way it’s written, and identify all the different ways the authors show, as well as tell. In addition to the figures and tables, mark each instance of an example, simile, metaphor, allusion and personification in the article margin. You will be surprised how frequently they employ these techniques, particularly simile and metaphor.
After you’ve practiced identifying these showing techniques, do the same exercise with one of your own papers.
1. Add up the frequency each method is used in your paper and the other paper you read. How do they compare? Which methods do you use more or less frequently?
2. Go back and look at the instances where the other authors used the showing techniques. Can you find similar opportunities in your own paper where you could have used one of the four techniques, but didn’t?
3. Try to add at least three similes, three metaphors, one allusion and one instance of personification to your paper across the spots you identified. Ask someone to read them and give you feedback on how they work.
© 2021 Timothy G. Pollock
THIS EXERCISE is BEING MADE PUBLICLY AVAILABLE to individuals for educational purposes only. It may not to be used by profit-making entities for any purpose, or packaged and resold by individuals for any other purpose. It may be used by individuals for personal use, or by instructors for classes, as long as this website is identified as the source of the exercise and no fee is charged for its use.