Do not use the words “unique” or “burgeoning” in any of your job documents.
They are painfully overused.
The first is just trite.
The second is over-dramatic.
That is all.
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Banish These Words
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add: “black box.”
How about “novel,” as in “novel approach” (particularly if it’s true and not a platitude)?
I almost always say to remove, except in the hard sciences where this seems to be a “term of art” when applied to methodologies. In the humanities and social sciences I find it to be another of the adjectives that just feel trite (as i describe more in the blog post, This Christmas, Don’t Be Cheap). In general, it’s a working principle of mine that adjectives detract from your credibility rather than increase it.
Yes m’am! Obeying right away m’am!
“ground-breaking.”
Indeed.
Regarding ‘novel’: what if one’s approach is new to the discipline? for example large historical scope vs. narrow case studies. How would you make this come across clearly without excessive over dramatic ‘volume’ ?
[being a non-native speaker makes me always feel at lack of words, ending up in using too expressive words to compensate for the frustration]
What people don’t seem to grasp is that if your approach is actually as novel as you think, just describing it as a “study of large historical scope” that allows for xx yy and zz insights will SHOW that it is novel and valuable, without your using cheap adjectives to say it.
Enough said. I don’t even use them in my daily speech. And “ground-breaking.”
But what about for fellowship applications?
No exceptions.
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