Keep your doing words doing - Emphasis

Keep your doing words doing Keep your doing words doing There are some words that just drag your writing down. Theyre heavy and dull,  and they have a nasty habit of lugging even more weight  in  with them. They make the person  reading your writing  work way too hard to understand your meaning. And,  the fact is, they  might not even bother.   The good news is that once you get used to recognising such words, you will be able to change them and quickly make your writing more clear, concise and direct. The doing word behind the thing What were talking about are nouns (things) that are sneakily hiding verbs (doing or being words, actions). For example, the noun discussion hides the verb (to) discuss. You can recognise a noun by the fact you put the, a or an in front of it (a discussion, for instance). These are called nominalisations. In fact, nominalisation is itself a nominalisation: to nominalise is to turn a verb or adjective into a noun. But dont worry too much about that. Watch the video to see what we mean: These nouns that hide verbs often end in -tion or -sion. Thats why we say you should shun the -tions. Its not the only ending (others include -ment, -age, -al and -ence). But its definitely something to look out for in your writing – especially if the -tion/-sion words start to pile up. Shun the -tions When you spot them, try to work out what verbs are hiding behind them. Then see if you can change your sentences to use the equivalent verbs instead. (For example, change We need a discussion to We need to discuss.) As youve seen, this will probably mean you can cut out other words too. Transform your writing in small, easy steps This video is an extract from online-learning programme, Emphasis 360, which is designed to transform your writing step by step, in practical, manageable, bite-sized lessons. You can access a full lesson from the course free of charge here.