The topical guide helps more than I could have hoped. Though what I connected with first was the section of acronyms. In the military acronyms are a part of life. You ride in an APC or HUMVEE. You fire a SAW or AT4. Also, missions can be SANFU or FUBAR. Most of the time you just keep a BOHICA kind of attitude. This may not seem relevant to college course but I feel in these text times acronyms are more applicable than ever. LOL, LMFAO, and BRB are a large part of the lexicon. However, just as I cannot add my acronyms from my military time to papers, neither can the text speak make it into college work. This may sound like a ridiculous statement, I hope it does at least, but I have heard from professors that those acronyms have popped up in work turned into them.

A more acceptable method to add spice to your work may be the use of compound modifiers. I write stories, most likely terrible stories, but when I do I try my best to make the writing interesting by using unique combinations of words. There is an unimaginable amount of possibilities that can be used for mixing adjectives, nouns, and verbs. Like the examples from the text, “Hard-driving” and “well-intentioned,” you can mix and match almost anything to get your point across.

“A dirty person ruined my clothes when they borrowed them.”

That description could be much better with a compound modifier.

“That transient-dirty person dirtied my clothes.”

Keep your language spicy.