Eng 151, Lydia McDermott

Levels of abstraction in writing:

Level 4: abstractions—intangible ideas (e.g. love, hope, truth, success)

Level 3: noun classes—broad groups with little specification (e.g. women, men, dogs,
Americans)

Level 2: noun categories—more definite subgroups (e.g. working mothers, African-

Americans, astronauts, professors, college students)

Level 1: specific, identifiable nouns—a unique instance (e.g. My mother, Rita, John
Glenn, bell hooks, George W. Bush, myself, Corky, my dog…)

Jean Paul Sartre defined evil as “man’s ability to make abstract that which is concrete.”

Abstraction effects your writing and has moral implications! (We hear level 3 and 4
abstractions most often from politicians).

***Replacing level 2,3,4 abstractions with a variety of level 1s and replacing passive
verbs with active verbs will improve your writing immediately and substantially. It will
also help you to meet page requirements.***

Here is an example of student writing that relies on level 2 and 3 abstractions, without
using any level 1s. We can call this “dead-leveling” because it ensures that no one will
be interested in reading:

The adolescent entering adulthood is faced with very trying problems, which contribute
toward their adulthood. These problems are sometimes very upsetting but turn out to be
good experiences. In this growing stage the youth is pressured by peers and often
completely changes his beliefs and attitudes. In this period of time, as they reach
adulthood, is when many adolescents do form the beliefs that they will carry out through
the rest of their lives. Adolescents going through this growth period are faced with many
difficult situations, which usually affect them greatly.

A study of the subjects of sentences in student and experienced writers shows:

level level level level

4 3 2 1

Students 13% 45% 32% 10%

Experienced 15% 12% 13% 60%

writers
A bit more about the abstract versus the concrete:

The word concrete comes from the Latin word for solid. A concrete image is anything
presented to the consciousness as a bodily sensation.

Abstract comes from the Latin word for withdrawn—removed from physical detail.

David Mason and John Frederick Nims discuss this point in their poetry textbook,
Western Wind, but it relates to any writing:

The importance of concrete is not only esthetic. Elias Canetti, the winner of the 1981
Nobel Prize in literature, declared that “Among the most sinister phenomena in
intellectual history is the avoidance of the concrete.” He meant that in ignoring what is
the “closest and most concrete” of realities, we are endangering the future of humanity.
When generals and politicians refer to deaths of innocent civilians in wartime as
“collateral damage,” they avoid the concrete images of mangled bodies, obscuring the
truth with abstraction.

A few examples from the bard: Shakespeare…

Abstract ideas: Concrete images:

We mean you no harm. To you our swords have leaden points…

Make the best of it. Men do their broken weapons rather use
Than their bare hands.

I have much to worry about. O, full of scorpions is my mind, wife!

I often change my mind. I am a feather for each wind that blows.

I think he knew what he was doing.

(Note: I am indebted to Jennie Nelson, Ohio University for much of this material.)