More than words

Words are very powerful tools for communication. It is important for us to widen our vocabulary; however, we need to remember that we need more than just words to communicate.

When I was still in grade school I always thought that our teacher grades our English essays depending on the words that we use. I felt that my classmate who used non-colloquial words get higher grades than us who tend to use words that are commonly used by people in our grade level.

As I grow older, I realized that we needed to look at words differently. We need to look at words base on how it can be used to effectively communicate.

Here are the top two things that I am continuously learning as I communicate with more people.

1. Keep it simple.

As communicators, we should use words as means to get our ideas across. It should never be a way to separate the educated from those who’ve never been to schools.

2. Everything is connected.

What I learned is that we should always check how the words we use relate to each other. It should always make sense to our target audience. Similar to film, the juxtaposition of shots creates a lot of impact on how a viewer interprets the film.

It is easy to learn new words. We can check the dictionary or read books. However, learning how to use these words to communicate will always be a lifelong learning experience for all of us.