INVERNESS COUNTY

Using Adjectives Effectively

Adjectives are words that describe nouns such as things, feelings or actions.

Examples:
Porcupine Mountain was ageless and gloomy.
He was driving a shiny, new car.
The work was hard and dangerous.

Read the first paragraph of “Welcome to Inverness” and cross out all the adjectives. What is left is not very interesting. Adjectives make our writing interesting and easier to understand. Imagine trying to describe any part of beautiful Cape Breton Island without using adjectives!

Picture what one of your favourite places on Cape Breton looks like, sounds like and even smells like. Write a paragraph describing this scene so that someone else can picture it. Some words such as “big” or “nice” are often used too much and don’t give the reader a clear understanding of what we want to say. Use a dictionary or thesaurus to choose similar words that are interesting and mean exactly what you want to say.