A word is terrible thing to waste. Or is it better to say, “It is a terrible thing to waste a word”? The difference between these two versions is a matter of diction, using appropriate words and combining them in the right way to communicate your message accurately. This lesson discusses ways to avoid some of the most common diction traps: wordiness, lack of precision, clichés, and jargon. Learning to recognize and avoid such writing weaknesses will turn a mediocre writer into a good one – this means expressing ideas in the best and clearest possible way.