"Eighty-seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation...." —The Gettysburg Address

Chances are that your reaction to the above "quote" is something along the lines of, "No, no, no! You're wrong, wrong, wrong!" And, of course, you would be right. Because Lincoln was not only a great leader, he was a great writer. So instead of beginning his Gettysburg Address with a cold, lifeless number, he opens on a prayerful note with a turn of phrase adapted from the 90th Psalm of the King James Bible: "Four score and seven."

Clearly, Lincoln knew the difference between the almost-right word—and, the right word. A distinction famously defined by Mark Twain some 25 years later as "the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."

With that thought in mind, in today's article I'm going to offer you a few choice words on word choice to help you get more of the right words into your communications. And, make your writing more effective.

Let's start by looking at the sports section of my local daily, The Columbus Dispatch. In a recent story, AP reporter Tim Reynolds describes Dick Vitale's reaction to being voted into the Basketball Hall-of-Fame. Vitale, writes Reynolds, "admitted he 'cried like a baby' upon learning he was induced."

Now, maybe Vitale's use of the word "baby" clouded the writer's thinking. Because induced is so not the right word choice.

Which leads us to today's big (but hardly revolutionary) idea: For more effective word choice, think harder about the words you choose.

For example, though it's obvious that Mr. Reynolds made the wrong choice, what about the people who penned these lines?

• This is literally the equivalent of Microsoft coming to your house and locking a CD in your car CD player.
• More CIOs are disinterested in Linux.
• Given the enormity of the job, it's no wonder the men who built the railroad seem like giants to some of us today.
• WasteWise has collected the following environmental factoids to help you understand the impacts of waste prevention and recycling. (From the Web site of the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency)

How many of these people made the wrong word choice? How many made the right choice? Actually, those are trick questions. Because in each instance the highlighted word is used incorrectly.

Yes, you may have read or heard a word used a certain way—even in a prestigious publication, by a noted expert or on a federal government agency Web site. But that doesn't mean the word was used correctly.

As to why the above words are—in Mark Twain's manner of speaking, lightning bugs—I'll go over one of them: factoid.

According to Webster's, a factoid is "something fictitious or unsubstantiated that is presented as fact, devised especially to gain publicity and accepted because of constant repetition."

Therefore, WasteWise is actually telling us that it has fictitious or unsubstantiated information to help us "understand the impacts of waste prevention and recycling." The writer could have prevented that mistake with a little more thought and a quick trip to an online dictionary. Which is what I trust you'll do if it's unclear to you why the other examples are incorrect.

Now for a couple of specific word choice tips:

1. Choose small, simple words

The Gettysburg Address is 271 words long; 220 of them, 81%, are just one syllable. My advice? For more effective word choice think like Lincoln. Think small:

Instead of writing "utilize," "peruse," "ascertain," write "use," "read," "find out."

Now, am I saying that you should never use big words? No, of course not. But in most cases small words will serve your purposes better.

And here's why: "The more simply and plainly an idea is presented, the more understandable it is—and therefore the more credible it will be." (Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear, by Dr. Frank Luntz)