Highlight

An informative blog post from Ian McCormick in praise and dispraise of “said” prompts a quick thought from me today on the word “highlight.”

If you (or one, or I, and change the verb accordingly) use “highlight” it ought to mean what it says. A highlighter helps the reader understand by emphasising certain elements, for example. However, Humpty-Dumpty-like, we (you, one, I &c., &c) try and make a word mean what we want it to mean; we often misuse “highlight” as if it means “This is an interesting idea from [writer A] and s/he says…” It’s got two syllables and is something to do with presenting an argument. It’ll do.

But Ian’s thoughts on “said” made me think about the real words we need. Brookes’ ever-useful Upgrade service is on hand with all sorts of links on academic writing, such as this, Manchester’s Academic Phrasebank.  I’d just like to add my own thoughts here.

When we write “highlights” we might mean any number of different things, but chatting to “my” students on Becoming a Reader this week as part of their feedback session brought to mind the idea that what we often intend is simply a richer way to put “writes.” Here, then, in no special order are some I think may be preferable in this sort of context.

argues
suggests
claims
discusses
explores
surveys
explains
makes the point that
asserts
states
maintains

Health warning to students: Use a dictionary to make sure it’s the right word, and remember: a thesaurus is not a dictionary. These words all have their uses; they just may not all be exact synonyms.

I’m not explaining what a synonym is – not now, at any rate.