Using language

Humans communicate through language, and although gestures and facial expressions are important means of communication, we most often rely on words to express ourselves. How many times have you been frustrated because you didn't have the right words to say what you meant? The broader your vocabulary, the more precisely you can communicate your ideas to others.

It's a little bit like playing "Telephone," the game in which the first player whispers something to the second, and then the second player whispers what she heard to the third person, and so on. At the end, you find out how mangled the original sentence has become by the time it reaches the last person. The more carefully the first player articulates the sentence, the less extreme the alterations are along the way. Of course, playing Telephone is not much fun if the sentence doesn't change. The whole point of the game, after all, is to see how distorted the original sentence becomes. What is entertaining in Telephone, however, is only frustrating when you are trying to make a point. When you use words that sort of mean what you want to say, the margin of error for your listener or reader is much greater than if you can choose the words that mean exactly what you intend them to. In effect, you have greater control over the message when you have greater control over the words that convey it.

The way you express yourself may also have an impact on how people view you. How do you decide how "smart" you think someone is? These days it's probably not the fountain pen, or the monocle, or the stack of weighty tomes under someone's arm that gives you an impression of intelligence. For better or worse, people draw their sense of our abilities largely from the language we use. In the end, how you say something matters as much as what you are trying to say.

The same thing will be true in grad school: You will be evaluated not only by the ideas you have, but also by how well you convey those ideas. Words are the tools you will use to express yourself in your personal statement when you apply to grad school, and later in your coursework, seminar papers and publications. The more precisely you can use language, the more seriously your ideas will be taken.