How to Explain Things "In Other Words"…
When writing to explain and convince, it’s sometimes necessary to reexplain things bu using different words and phrases.
It is unrealistic to expect people to understand what you’re talking about the first time you write about it.
Sometimes you need to explain the same concept or idea multiple times and in different ways to make it clear.
The more technical the idea, the more important it is to re-explain it by using phrases like “in other words” and “that is”.
Here are some examples:
“Jane thought her apology would serve no good purpose. In other words, she did not believe that Brad would understand why she had to cancel the party.”
“Plants die without sunshine; they need light for chlorophyll synthesis, that is, those that live on earth since some plant life has been discovered recently at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, near hot gas inlets. In other words, it’s not totally correct to say that ALL plant life depend on sunlight since there are a few species that apparently do synthesis food without any light.”
“The State Planning Board could not afford to change its priorities. In other words, the Board knew that it would be held legally liable if it withheld any previously approved funds from infrastructure expansion and used it to hire more police officers.”
“He felt lucky under the circumstances; that is, even though he wasn’t paid much he was aware that he could’ve been sent to a lonely post in the middle of the Kalahari Desert.”
“An ideal manufacturing process would have zero variation. That is, the produced items would be identical in every way.”
“She was well within her legal rights; that is, she had the right to keep silent but insist on having access to her attorney.”
“This carbon cycle diagram shows the storage and annual exchange of carbon between the atmosphere, hydrosphere and geosphere (that is, air, water, and land) in gigatons – or billions of tons – of Carbon (GtC). Burning fossil fuels by people adds about 5.5 GtC of carbon per year into the atmosphere. In other words, assuming that there are 6 billion people alive on our planet, every living man, woman, and child releases more than 0.9 tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year.”
