Significant and Relevant

Use significant (important) and relevant (connected to the topic) correctly.

'Significant' and 'relevant' both help you judge details, but they measure different things. Significant means important or meaningful, worth noticing; in math and science it can also mean large enough not to be due to chance. Relevant means closely connected to the topic or question at hand. A detail can be relevant without being significant, and the reverse. Imagine an article about a town's new park. 'The park opened on a sunny Tuesday' is relevant (it is about the park) but not very significant.

'The park was built on land that had flooded every spring' is both relevant and significant, because it changes how we understand the park. 'The mayor's cousin likes tennis' is neither, unless the article is about favoritism. When a question asks for the 'most significant' detail, look for the one that changes the meaning; when it asks which detail is 'relevant', check the connection to the question.

• 1Significant means important or meaningful.
• 2Relevant means connected to the topic or question.
• 3A detail can be relevant but not significant.