Tag: English

Ises and ares and to bes.

Blech.

Weak verbs can make your writing boring and wordy. In one of my first agency positions after I graduated from college, my manager went so far as to call them “lazy.”

This same manager and her (sometimes) harsh feedback drove me to make changes in my writing style. But catching weak verbs before they come off the end of your fingers onto the screen or paper challenges even experienced writers.

I developed a trick that I used until I’d retrained my writing brain. My only tool? A highlighter.

• Take a printed copy of the assignment (work or school) and a highligher in your choice of color.
• Start at the top of the page and highlight every form of the verb “to be”: am, are, is, was, were, will be, has been, have been, had been, etc. Focus primarily on is, are, were.
  
• Work to change as many of the highlighted verbs as you can from weak verbs to active verbs. To be verbs do serve a purpose and it isn’t necessary to change every single one, but strong, active verbs should dominate your writing.

Some other tips:

• Use your imagination to substitute more interesting words.
• Don’t start sentences with “There is” or “There are.”
• Use the simple forms of your verb of choice (listens vs. is listening, for example).
• Embed the adjective before the noun you’re modifying rather than dragging the sentence out (brand-new baseball stadium vs. the baseball stadium, which is brand new).

Go forth and write well!

*note: you’ll only find one “to be” verb in this blog post. 🙂