Nominalizations

Nominalizations are a major part of what's wrong with lots of student writing. A nominalization is an action expressed as a noun. Any nominalization can be turned into a verb, and vice versa （sometimes the two forms, the noun and the verb, are identical）:

NOMINALIZATION
==>
VERB

help
==>
help

argument
==>
argue

analysis
==>
analyze

behavior
==>
behave

performance
==>
perform

try, effort
==>
try

description
==>
describe

revelation
==>
reveal, show

action
==>
act

explanation
==>
explain

distortion
==>
distort

nominalization
==>
nominalize

　　As the last six examples above show, nominalizations very often end in -ion, and especially in -tion: abstract nouns like revolution, operation, abstraction, speculation, representation, etc. Thus it's fairly easy to spot nominalizations in one's writing.

　　The trouble with nominalizations is that by putting actions into nouns, they allow the actions to be separated from their actors. By contrast, if you use a verbs in a sentence, you need a subject: someone has to explain, someone has to argue, someone has to act, and so on （unless you use the passive voice, of course）:

NOMINALIZATION REVISION
An analysis was performed.
Dr. Radic performed an analysis.

A distortion occurred in the presentation of the candidate's position.
Your newspaper distorted the candidate's position.

There were reports of attacks on women in Central Park.
A roving band of men in Central Park attacked any women who crossed their path.

　　Sometimes you may want this capacity to leave the doer out. Depending on the point of view you choose, you might well prefer There was a pounding at the door to He pounded on the door. But too often nominalizations become students' default habit rather than a deliberate choice.

　　Nominalizations also encourage long, shapeless strings of words, because without the discipline of verbs, one can go on adding noun after noun to a sentence. One may end up with a heck of an ugly sentence that's close to incomprehensible—but you can keep it grammatical:

　　An accreditation analysis was conducted of the performance level of the administration of the senior executive compensation disbursement mechanism.

　　Since nominalizations allow one to present actions without actors, many student writers deliberately use them to sound objective and scientific. Sometimes that works well. But all too often nominalizations produce stiff, lifeless prose.

　　Reduction in nominalization use tendencies has as a requirement the expression of actions as verbs rather than nouns:

ORIGINAL REVISION
The play examines the conflict the conspirators face after the assassination of Julius Caesar.
The play examines the conflict the conspirators face after they assassinate Julius Caesar.

The love Brutus has for Cleopatra is much greater than any love he has for his wife.
Brutus loves Cleopatra more than his wife.

His test performance received an assessment of satisfactory achievement.
He passed the test.

　　We've looked at some key elements of the kind of unclear writing students tend to fall into: lack of agency and overuse of the passive voice and nominalizations. We're ready to put these pieces together into the style that epitomizes much modern writing, the Official Style, and its antithesis （and our hero）, the plain style.