In-depth

In-depth

“In-depth” is a modifier that we can use to describe something that is thorough and detailed . The opposite of “in-depth” is quick, fast, high-level, not detailed.

You heard “in-depth” in today’s story about the redesign of the euro paper banknotes . The ECB posted an online survey about the seven potential design themes—birds, rivers, European values, and, oddly , hands, among other ideas. The online survey was quick, and a lot of people took it.

But that survey by itself won’t decide the final theme. It’s just one step in the process . Next, the ECB will conduct 25,000 in-depth interviews with E.U. citizens. I called these interviews, “in-depth interviews” because these will be comprehensive and more detailed than the online survey.

The online survey just asked for people’s opinions. But the in-depth interviews will probably ask more detailed questions. For example, they might ask about what emotions certain designs provoke . They might ask people to give longer reactions or feedback to certain ideas, to say why they liked the ideas they liked. The online survey was quick, but the phone interviews will be detailed. So we say, they will be “in-depth interviews.”

Here’s something I used to do when I was in consulting . We’d do profiles of competitive businesses for our clients. So a company would ask for an analysis of other, similar businesses. And we’d do a high-level survey of many different competitors . But then we’d pick just two or three competitors and do an in-depth analysis of those.

We’d ask more questions, we’d gather more data, we’d spend more time, we’d do a more detailed write-up of just two or three other companies. So we’d have a high-level, simple survey of a lot of competitors, followed by an in-depth survey of just a few competitors.

There was just a museum exhibit in Chicago—JR went four times! He’s lucky; I didn’t get to go at all. It was an in-depth exhibit of Van Gogh’s paintings along the Seine River, all produced between 1882 and 1889. There were 24 Van Gogh paintings in the exhibit, plus fifty paintings from his contemporaries , all done in the same region of France.

If you go to the Art Institute on any given day, you can see some Van Gogh paintings; you can see some paintings from Impressionists done in this area and at this time. But this exhibit had 24 paintings, all done in the same region and in the same few years by Van Gogh. That’s why we say this exhibit was an in-depth exhibit from this part of Van Gogh’s life.

This exhibit was much more thorough, much more detailed than other collections , which might be more general, covering just a few paintings or a longer period of Van Gogh’s career. I think that exhibit has moved to the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands, in case you’re in Europe and able to visit.

Here are a few other quick examples. You can say, “A magazine published an in-depth article about the latest advancements in artificial intelligence .” That means the article is detailed and thorough—it’s probably long.

You can say that a financial analyst produced an in-depth report on a company’s stock . That report would be long, thorough, and detailed. You can say that employees were required to take an in-depth training on the importance of data security . That means the training was detailed and thorough.

So we use “in-depth” as a modifier, and it comes before the noun . In-depth report, in-depth training, in-depth article, in-depth exhibit, like that.

See you next time!

That’s all for today. Remember the full lesson is available at PlainEnglish.com/612.

Coming up on Thursday—you guys know, I don’t talk about myself a whole lot. I only do it if it helps illustrate a point. Like when I told you about my classmate who stuck a piece of metal into the electrical socket : there was no better way to illustrate the expression, “an accident waiting to happen .”

But this month, I celebrate the one-year anniversary of my move to another country . And that is an experience a lot of you have had as well. So on Thursday, we’ll talk about my first year living in another culture, the surprises, the ups , the downs , all that stuff. And we’ll see how it compares to your experience, or to the experiences of the people you know who have also moved across borders .

That’s on Thursday. I’m looking forward to it. See you then.