"Address An Issue"

The phrase “address an issue” is fairly common in formal speech and writing. You might hear a politician or employer talking about “addressing an issue.” This article will talk about what it means and how it differs from fixing one.

“Address an issue” means to give attention to a matter and begin to deal with it. Generally, no solution is found straight away (unlike fixing an issue). Instead, “address” means we’re going to look into it with the aim of finding a solution later.

The definition of “address,” according to The Cambridge Dictionary, is”to give attention to or deal with a matter or problem.” When talking about “addressing an issue,” we’re using “address” in the verb form.

To address an issue, you may find yourself (or someone else) doing one of the following:

How you address the issue is dependent on the context. However, the idea is always that you’re bringing your attention to the issue rather than solving it straight away.

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To help you understand the phrase slightly better, we’ll include some examples to show you when it works best and when you can use it.

As you can see, “address an issue” is used when we want to start working on solving a problem. We typically give people notice or a time frame to solve an issue, and it’s important to differentiate that we’re not looking for an ultimate fix straight away.

“Addressing an issue” talks about starting to develop ideas to help solve the issue. There is no definitive outcome or solution yet. “Fixing an issue” is what we do when we’ve completed and solved the issue at hand.

“Addressing an issue” means there’s plenty more work that needs to be done before we find a solution, while “fixing an issue” means we’ve solved the issue, and there’s no more that needs to be done on that front.

The different verb forms we use here play a key part in the meaning of our phrase. If we make sure we’re using the right verb form, we’ll always use it correctly.

Sometimes, we might say “fix an issue” before we’ve come to a solution. That’s because we are determined to get to the solution and know that it’s feasible and possible to do so.

While the solution isn’t yet guaranteed, the idea is that we’re working towards that solution and won’t stop the task or job until we’ve completed it.

“Address the issue” in this sense still only means that we’re going to look into the issue and not that we’re going to solve it.

This means we’ll work on the issues, but we don’t have any plans to solve them; we simply want to know what we’re working with.

Finally, let’s go over some synonyms you can use in place of “address an issue.”

These synonyms all offer a way to start looking into an issue without a solution straight away.

You may also like: “Address A Question” Meaning (And How It Differs From Answering)

Martin holds a Master’s degree in Finance and International Business. He has six years of experience in professional communication with clients, executives, and colleagues. Furthermore, he has teaching experience from Aarhus University. Martin has been featured as an expert in communication and teaching on Forbes and Shopify. Read more about Martin here.