Writing Tips: Keeping Things Clear, Part 2

What makes a sentence clear?  As we noted in our previous post, readers tend to respond well to statements that feature a clear, concrete actor and a simple, vivid action.   That’s because such sentences are like miniature stories – they’re easily imaginable.

One way to unleash the power of good, concrete verbs (or action words) in your sentences is to avoid turning them into long, ponderous, abstract nouns – that is, words indicating people, places and things.  Nouns that have been “converted” from being verbs often end in -tion, -ment, or -ance.

Consider this: Identification of the problem involved a set of inquiries with respect to the governance of the province by elected officials.

Ugh.  It’s like government-speak, right?  But drill down into some of those long nouns and you’ll find a vein of clear, vivid gold – in the form of action words (identify, inquire, govern). They identified the problem by inquiring how elected officials are governing the province.

Check out this entertaining TED video from Helen Sword on the dangers of “zombie nouns”: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/beware-of-nominalizations-aka-zombie-nouns-helen-sword