100 Words Every Expert Author Should Know

As I looked at this list of words in this EzineArticles.com blog post, I was taken aback. I doubt I have used a fraction of the words on this list in my writing, words like amalgamate, obfuscate, ostentatious or supercilious. The audience I typically write for could not relate. I’d lose them. As a former junior high school teacher, we were conscious of the grade level of the writing of texts and articles we gave to our students. For general audiences, the reading level is pretty low, even for high school graduates. My readers would not get beyond paragraph one.

Take a look at this list. Do you use many of these words in your writing? This blog got a lot of comments. So many, in fact, that it spurred a part 2, explaining that they did not mean you should use all of these in your writing. You do need to know your audience, but knowledge of these words and their meaning could improve your writing. See Part II here.

Any comments? Do you have to “dumb down” your writing? From teaching, I think I have dumb-downed my vocabulary overall! Jaimie