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Australian manual of scientific style Start communicating effectively
Avoiding vague verbs and inane nouns
How to recognise and replace weak and lifeless words
When we write, it is best to use active language and precise, pointed words.
Vague verbs
Vague verbs lack specificity. Often, they are flagged by forms of to be, as in was, were and so on. Performed, conducted and achieved are all vague – they really just say done. Look for words that mean done or simply say that something exists or existed.
1. Lymph node dissection was performed.
2. Experiments were conducted to measure the humidity of the cabinet.
3. Adding the enzyme achieved a reduction in the level of insulin.
Vague verbs often accompany passive voice, so we can fix 2 problems at once.
1. Lymph node dissection was performed.
becomes
1. We dissected the lymph node.
Sometimes we can omit the verb completely, which shows that it was not pulling its weight; we can omit ‘conducted’ (and rewrite a little):
2. We measured the humidity in the cabinet …
Here we remove ‘achieved’ by using more positive, active language:
3. We reduced the level of insulin by adding the enzyme.
or
3. Adding the enzyme reduced the insulin level.
In all cases, the sentence is zippier.
Inane nouns
Words like comparison, demonstration and implementation are nouns derived from verbs, in this case compare, demonstrate and implement.
Sentences that use the noun forms are wordier, because we must add a verb to make up for the one we turned into a noun! (In English, sentences must have verbs.)
What do I mean?
I compared the 2 cheeses.
Here, compared is a verb. The noun we might make from it is comparison. If I use the noun, the sentence lacks a verb (it is no longer a sentence!), so I must add a verb (made):
I made a comparison of the 2 cheeses.
The sentence is now longer, wordier, duller, and says nothing extra. At least I did not add undertook or some other unnecessarily long word instead of made.
Tip. Don’t use a noun and a verb when a verb will do!
Verbs are ‘doing’ words. They give writing movement and life. Well-chosen verbs make sentences shorter and punchier. When we review our writing, we must look for these verb + noun (or noun + verb) constructions and see if we can replace them with a precise verb.
We want to go from:
A [noun] was done
to
We [verb]ed.
But don’t go verbing nouns at random.1
Tip. Check your style guide, if you have one; it may specify acceptable usages for some words. Some guides say access and impact (for example) are only to be used as nouns.
Activity
Using the material we’ve covered on this page, please rewrite these sentences to be punchier.
But ... ‘The operation succeeded’ (or similar) may not be precise enough for some purposes – perhaps the surgery was completed correctly, but the patient still died. Always make sure the required precision is kept. Better to be wordy and correct than pithy and wrong.
The power of verbs
Consider the following sentences, which all differ only in verb choice:
They developed a cure.
They concocted a cure.
They found a cure.
They pursued a cure.
They created a cure.
They fashioned a cure.
They manufactured a cure.
They forged a cure.
Do these all mean the same thing to you? What images do they conjure up in your mind? Some of these words are more evocative than others.
Reactions to words can be quite personal. To me, developed says little. Pursued suggests a kind of race against time (or against competing researchers, perhaps?), while fashioned has an air of flanging something together using more ingenuity than money. Forged makes it sound like a heroic endeavour, possibly involving some very large hammers and a furnace. Found suggests they hunted through existing remedies (or naturally occurring products, perhaps?) whereas manufactured suggests a solution made in a laboratory. I’m not sure I would want to try a cure that had been concocted.
We could use other words (as long as they are true to the facts): handcrafted, synthesised, brewed, constructed, even faked ... As a rule, the more precise the meaning of the verb (or any word), the punchier the writing. Developed could stand for any of these verbs, and is correspondingly bland.
Tip. When is comes to verbs, keep your thesaurus handy.
Activity
- Choose a sentence from something you are writing. Choose one with a bland, generic verb.
- Paste it into a blank document.
- Use a thesaurus (there are plenty online or built into your word processor; you can even just google ‘synonym <word>’) to find a dozen or so synonyms for the verb. Don’t just think of the synonyms yourself because we want to find the unexpected.
- Copy the sentence a dozen times and change only the verb.
- Reflect on how the meaning changes, how the connotations change, and how your reaction to the sentence changes. What mental images are generated?
- Think about how you can use verbs in your own writing.
1 www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/01/25, https://paste.plurk.com/show/eCryRnHIzkg4U5aF35MB, www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/verbing-weirds-language-but-in-a-good-way