Write It

Week 8: Avoiding Idioms

Original Paragraph: Adapted from Vena, Dan. 2017. "Rereading Superman as a Trans
F/Man." Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 25. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2017.1063. pp. 2.1.

1.In a nutshell, superheroes are heroic individuals who use their extraordinary abilities in a
selfless, prosocial manner, according to comics studies scholar, Peter Coogan (2009, 77).
2.But through their narrative exploits, superheroes, like other fictional genre characters,
come into play through the dominant cultural values of the society they are produced
within. 3.The symbolic meanings of superheroes thus are all over the place; they go hand in
hand with the social and political conditions of the era (Coogan 2009, 77; Harrison 2010,
122). 4.These back-and-forth oscillations between challenging and/or reinforcing dominant
ideologies goes to show how the dynamic of (re)serialization is possible.

© 2022 Student Academic Success Services, Queen’s University, Kingston, http://sass.queensu.ca. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada License.
Top take-aways:
• Idioms are phrases that have widely understood figurative meanings; however,
the literal meaning of these phrases cannot be easily understood.
o For example, “it’s a piece of cake” means that something is very easy, and
“I’m feeling under the weather” means you’re not feeling well.
• Idioms are a common feature of many languages. In spoken academic discussions
/ presentations, we often use idioms when we want to quickly and conveniently
communicate a message and feel confident that our intended meaning will be
understood.
• In academic writing, however, idioms are significantly less common. Idioms might
sound exciting but often are unhelpful for your reader. Academics prefer to use
literal, objective, and direct language in writing.
• Strategies for editing idioms out of your writing include:
o Replacing general idioms with phrases that are common in your discipline.
o Removing idioms to simplify your message and eliminate wordiness.
o Replacing idioms with more explicit language that tells your reader exactly
what you mean.

Resources:
• Self-Editing Checklist:
https://sass.queensu.ca/resources/online/self-editing-checklist
• Write Like a Scholar:
https://sass.queensu.ca/resources/online/write-scholar
• Academic Phrasebank, University of Manchester:
https://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/
• They Say / I Say, academic sentence templates:
https://cla.middcreate.net/wp-content/uploads/tainacan-
items/814/4944/Useful_Templates_TSIS.pdf

Contact:
Academic English Skills
Student Academic Success Services (SASS) | Queen's University International Centre (QUIC)
eal.sass@queensu.ca

© 2022 Student Academic Success Services, Queen’s University, Kingston, http://sass.queensu.ca. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada License.