Better words to substitute for "things"? (2025)

Hello everyone,

"There are three things I did well".

Are there any words that can substitute the word "things". It doesn't sound formal enough to be used in an essay.

Please help.

The existence of another word depends on what those things are. After a decathlon competition, an athlete might say "There were three events in which I did well, but I had average or poor results in the other seven." A surgeon, after a long day in the operating room, might say "There were three procedures I did well." There are other specific terms in many other contexts. If you give us more of the context in which you plan to use this sentence, or the subject of your essay, we might come up with some that fit. Lacking any context, the generic "things" is all we have.

Added in edit: Cross-posted with the previous poster, who said the same thing in far fewer words.

This is a reflection paper I need to write after my communication class speech. I need to identify three things I did well and three things I need to improve.

I don't want to use the word "things" too many times in my paper. Could you please help?

Thank you!

Laozha said:

Could you please help?

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We could help you better if you gave us an idea of what those things actually

, Laozha.

Laozha,

For things you didn't do so well, you could say:
"...areas for improvement would include..."
"I need to improve on/I need to work on..."For the things you did well, these are some suggestions:
"I performed well in the area of..."
"My performance in (whatever) was.."
"I succeeded in doing/saying/showing, proving..."As Ewie said, that's about as specific we can be, considering you weren't much help.

As you can see from my examples, I used phrases instead of the word things.

Laozha said:

Hello everyone,

"There are three things I did well".

Are there any words that can substitute the word "things". It doesn't sound formal enough to be used in an essay.

Please help.

Click to expand...

Where can we use STUFF instead of thing? instead of "I should do something" can I say "I should do some stuff"?

Thank you everyone for your help.

I really appreciated all your help. I have had this problem in many cases, not just for this essay, but now I know it is ok to use "things" in a formal essay and I have to choose your word choice based on the situation.

Thanks again.

eli7 said:

Where can we use STUFF instead of thing? instead of "I should do something" can I say "I should do some stuff"?

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I do not know if I should start a new thread for this question or not. so i post it again. please help me out

eli7 said:

I do not know if I should start a new thread for this question or not. so i post it again. please help me out

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Your question is whether we can substitute "something" in "I should do something" to "stuff"?

No of course you can not!

Stuff is used when you are talking about things such as substances, materials or a bunch of objects when you do not know what they are called or you dont want to specify their names.

I hope it helps

alex_ln said:

Your question is whether we can substitute "something" in "I should do something" to "stuff"?

No of course you can not!

Stuff is used when you are talking about things such as substances, materials or a bunch of objects when you do not know what they are called or you dont want to specify their names.

I hope it helps

Click to expand...

It actually did. thank you. So, it must be a correct sentence: " I am so busy today. I have to do some stuff". Right?