Diction is just fancy way of saying "choice of words." So, diction errors are simply errors in word choice. There are two different types of diction errors, both of which appear primarily in Identifying Sentence Error Questions (and less commonly in Improving Sentences or Improving Paragraphs questions). The two types of Diction errors are:
- Redundancy Errors
- Wrong Word Errors
Redundancy Errors occur when the sentence uses two words that mean the same thing, resulting in a repetitive sentence. For example:
- The reason is because
- This is an error, because "the reason" essentially means the same thing as "because" We don't want to use the same word twice in a row.
- This should read "The reason that"
- The doctor he came
- This is an error, because "he" is a pronoun which would replace Doctor. So, the sentence essentially says "the doctor the doctor came" or "He he came"- obviously this is repetitive and unnecessary
- This should just read "The doctor came"
- The food tasted more better
- Both 'better' and 'more' are comparative words. If something is 'more' we already know that it is being favorably compared to something else. If something is better, that just tells us again that a favorable comparison is being made
- This should just read "The food tasted better" or "The food was more delicious"
- This redundancy error is an adverb error because two comparative words are being used
