Tip 30: Word choice
Three tips on avoiding confusing word choices, but see also the Word Choice handout:
    Look it up. Confusing word choices are sometimes the result of choosing a similar sounding word (using "expediently' rather than "expeditiously"). Use the dictionary so that you're sure you know the proper meaning of the term before you use it.
   Avoid "thesaurusitis," the medical term for any unhealthy inflammation of the vocabulary. It is always laudable to improve your vocabulary, but be sure to do so correctly. You need not resort to the thesaurus in order to impress the reader with a large word when a smaller, simpler one would do. This often results in the writer finding a word that has a related meaning but not the exact meaning for the context. For example, simple and humble can be synonyms in certain contexts, but calling someone simple is different from calling someone humble.
   Define your terms. Confusing word choices are sometimes the result of using a term with different meanings in different contexts. Here, be sure to define your terms. If you are arguing, for example, that The Odyssey supports the value of individualism, your reader will need a clear definition — probably in the first or second paragraph — of what you mean by individualism. Individualism is usually considered a modern concept, so using it in a different context needs explaining.

Paragraph 4     In this paragraph, we will work on clarifying the expression of your ideas. Key issues are: brevity, word choice, verb tenses, spelling, and common grammatical errors.

     Not only is trickery heroic in The Odyssey, but Penelope is as much a trickster as Odysseus. Just as Athene, daughter of Zeus,uses trickery, so does Penelope. Penelope deceives the suitors into believing that she will marry one of them after she weaves a shroud for her father-in-law Laertes. On Odysseusreturn, Penelope tells him: "in the daytime [she] would weave at my great loom, but in the night [she] would have torches set by, and undo it" (Odyssey, p. 286). Penelope also usedtrickery to get Odyssuesto act expedientlyto kill the suitors. Still disguised as a beggar,she tells Odysseus that she "cannot escape from this marriage" with one of the suitors, urging Odysseus to act soon (Odyssey, p. 286). And finally, Penelope tricks and even outwits her husband Odysseus again when she gets him to reveal and acknowledge his personal identity. She tells him she has moved their bed, which Odysseus built into an olive tree,in his absence. Which he knows is impossible. Odysseus reveals himself when he says: "I myself, no other man, made it" (Odyssey, p. XX). Itsclear that Penelope gets the upper hand, triumphing over the great hero of trickery, Odysseus himself. When hereads The Odyssey, the reader can only conclude that Penelope is the true heroinof The Odyssey.