Every person who’s ever written anything knows how important it is to use synonyms to keep the readers’ attention. We are taught that we need to pay attention to the grammar and the spelling, that we need to keep the sentences short, but if you want people to read through your article, you need to do much more. No matter if you are compiling the thesis for your school or university, or if you run your own blog, you need to keep things interesting, and you need to make readers want to read what you have written. The statistic shows that there are almost 200 thousand words in the English language, however, most people don’t know and use more than 35 thousand of them. To be able to write and captivate the readers, you need to use different words, synonyms, and even help people learn something new. This does not mean that you should write your blogs in a way that no one will understand, but putting in a new term once in a while, will help your audience a lot. Nowadays, content creators use different platforms to help out with that, and the Thesaurus is something that many people find helpful.
By definition, the Thesaurus is a synonym dictionary, and it helps writers find the synonyms of the words that they are already using way too frequently. For example, when you want to state that something is really pretty, you can use different words starting from beautiful, up to gorgeous, attractive, ravishing, and even alluring. As you can see, you already knew all of these words, but sometimes your brain gets stuck, and you cannot think of a different expression other than the one that was already on your mind. This synonym dictionary can help you a lot when you are creating your work, but there are also some disadvantages to it. In this article, we are going to tell you more about the things you should pay attention to when using it, and why you need to use it with caution.
Source: Medium
1. Using the wrong words
The first things we are going to talk about are synonyms and your knowledge of them. Even though we are able to use pretty much any term we want in an article, you still need to have the knowledge on how to use them, and if they are a good match for the sentence. In case you need to Google a word, experts say that you may not know the exact meaning of it, and you may end up using it in the wrong way.
In a case like this, you readers may notice that you didn’t know what you wanted to write, and you may end up looking like you are illiterate. You should always be extremely cautious when using new words for the first time, and you should do the needed research and find out if that is the correct way of using them. Sometimes it is better to keep it simple, than trying to be smart and end up looking silly.
Source: Open University
2. Missing the point
Even one expression can change the whole meaning of the sentence, and by using synonyms you are not used to, you may miss the whole point.
It is said that if you are using the Thesaurus just to impress your readers, you should not do that. The people who follow your blog already like your style and the way you create the articles, so you should not try and confuse them. In addition to this, you should use the synonym dictionary to learn new words, but only in the correct way and form.
According to powerthesaurus, this mighty tool can help you a lot to keep the article interesting and to avoid using the same phrase over and over again. However, you should not use synonyms that you don’t know, and you should steer away from choosing the terms you are not sure you know what they mean. Even though they are synonyms for the word you were looking for, they may need to be used in a specific way, and you may end up completely missing the point.
Source: Days Of The Year
3. Embrace your vocabulary
The last thing we are going to talk about is vocabulary. As we mentioned before, most people know and use between 15 and 25 thousand words, and that’s more than enough. You don’t have to use big words, and you don’t have to write complicated sentences.
The first rule of every blog and article creation is that everyone should be able to understand you. If you want to keep your readers and attract new ones, you should keep your blogs simple. One huge mistake people make is creating articles that are not made for everyone, and people steer away from things they cannot understand.
If your readers end up with a headache after trying to understand what you wanted to say, you did a very bad job. It is said that you need to embrace your vocabulary, and you need to use the terms and phrases you are comfortable with. In case you want to expand your views and if you want to learn how to use more words, then you should start by reading books. This way, you will learn new words, and you will learn the proper way of using them.
It is far better to be genuine and to show your readers you are a normal person, just like them, than to try and use big phrases and seem fake. No one likes people that are bragging, and unless you feel comfortable with using big expressions, you should not do it just to seem smarter.
The Thesaurus is a great tool, and you should use it to find synonyms and to make your article better and more unique. However, you should never put things you don’t understand. The English language has at least 10 synonyms for every single word, and you can find new phrases that you know and understand for anything you want to write. Choose different terms, play around with the sentence structure, try different things out, but know that sometimes creating a simple document will be far better than ending up with something no one can understand.
