Telling vs. Showing: Revising Dyads and Lists

In my previous blog post, I talked about the importance of showing language instead of telling language in documents like personal statements or cover letters. Today, I’m going to hone in on two notorious culprits of telling language: dyads and lists. I’ll talk about how to identify them and then how to revise them. Like my previous blog post, my examples come from a workshop I conducted for clinical psychology students who were writing their internship cover letters, so all of my examples include content relevant to that profession. However, the principles I outline are applicable to writing a cover letter or a personal statement for any profession.

Dyads are groups of two words joined by the words “and” or “or.” Here is an example of a dyad (in bold):

“In my work as xxx, I pull from and work with the strengths of my team.”

This dyad bogs down the flow of the sentence because it involves prepositions (“from”, “with”). We can replace this dyad with a strong verb to demonstrate an outcome (in bold).

“In my work as xxx, I rely on the strengths of my team to accomplish z.”

Now that we’ve gotten rid of the dyad, we have room to talk about an outcome.

 Here is another example of a dyad:  

“I was drawn to the unique and dynamic struggles of college students as they balance personal identity formation and academic development.” 

In this example, “unique and dynamic” as well as “personal identity formation and academic development” are the offending parties. We can make the sentence more specific and make connections for our reader by omitting some words and changing others:

“I was drawn to the dynamic struggles of college students as they balance personal identity formation with academic development.”

These examples show how dyads can bog down sentences. But dyads can also be non-specific. Consider the following:

“I found my work at x site to be a unique and challenging experience.”

Here we have the double-whammy of a dyad with non-specific word choice. In what respect was this work challenging? In what respect what this work unique? We can revise this statement into one of the following sentences:

“My work at x site challenged my preconceived notions about y population.”

“My work at x site allowed me to apply x therapy to both adolescents and adults with PTSD.” 

As a general rule, I tell student to use “unique” as a placeholder for something more specific because, ironically, there is nothing unique about the word unique.

In general, dyads result in clunky, unspecific, or unconnected prose. Dyads also throw a lot of information at your reader, making it harder for them to absorb what you’re telling them. However, you do not have to get rid of all your dyads. Sometimes you need groups of two, like in the example above that identified adolescents and adults with PTSD. You want to remove as many dyads as possible from your writing so that when you do need a dyad, your reader has the cognitive capacity to absorb it.

Another thing to avoid is lists. Lists can really make prose thick thus hard to read. Consider the following example:

“I had the privilege of treating students at X University in various capacities, including individual therapy, couples’ therapy, group therapy, crisis management, and outreach programming.”

 Consider revising a list so that you show what these things looked like:

“I treated students at X University with a combination of individual and group therapies. In these sessions, I taught them how to handle the stress of being a college student. I also designed outreach programs to…”

 Reading list after list after list can really bog down prose! Let me show you…

“Training at X University solidified my belief that university counseling was the perfect match for my values of personal authenticity, social justice, and professional excellence. At X Health Center, I learned how to use psychological assessment, evidence-based group therapy, and individual consultations to strengthen my crisis intervention skills.”

Having two sentences with back-to-back lists throws a lot of information at your reader, all of which they can’t absorb. Consider revising:

“Training at X University solidified my belief that university counseling matched my value for social justice. [one additional sentence to explain]. At X Health Center, my crisis intervention skills strengthened as I conducted evidence-based group therapy and individual consultations with young adults experiencing trauma.”

 Keep in mind that you do not have to re-write your CV or resume in your cover letter. Instead, choose one or two situations from your experience that are most relevant to what you will be required to do at the site or job for which you are applying and take the time to show your reader a picture of you at work.  

Identifying dyads and lists gives you a place to start revising your cover letter. However, you might feel discouraged if you discover that all your sentences contain lists or dyads. Remember, telling language is a step toward showing language. Your first draft will be full of telling language because it is so much easier to write, but you can then transform that telling language into showing language.

Happy revising!