Volume 26, Issue 1 - Writing better
Finding the action in your writing: Avoiding nominalisation
Author: Michele Arduengo
Abstract
Dense, hard-to-follow writing obfuscates complex subject matter, but writers can improve their ability to communicate complex topics with clear writing that is easily understood on a first read. Science and medical writing often contain grammatical constructs, including nominalisations, which require the reader to perform “mental gymnastics” to discover the actors and the action of the sentence. Reading for nominalisations and rescuing the verbs that they hide reveals the action. The writing becomes more engaging, easier to understand, and more likely to capture the reader’s interest. Here I discuss how to recognise and edit nominalisations, concluding the article with some short sentences for practice.
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Editor-in-Chief:
- Phillip Leventhal (4Clinics, Lyon, France)
Co-Editor:
- Stephen Gilliver (TFS Trial Form Support, Lund, Sweden)
Managing Editor
- Victoria White (Tampa, Florida, USA) Email: MEW@emwa.org
Associate Editors:
- Anuradha Alahari (PAREXEL International, Paris, France)
- Raquel Billiones (Clinipace, Zurich, Switzerland)
- Barbara Grossman (Hawkeye Medical Limited, Berkshire, UK)
- Joselita T Salita (Freelance, Bremen, Germany)
- Katharine Webb (INC Research, in Munich, Germany)
- Nathan Susnik (Hanover Medical School, Hanover, Germany)
Section Editors:
- Alison McIntosh (ICON Clinical Research, Hampshire, UK)
- Karin Eichele (Novartis Pharma, Nürnberg, Germany)
- Greg Morley (Freelance, Madrid, Spain)
- Wendy Kingdom (Wendy Kingdom Ltd., Dulverton, UK)
- Lisa Chamberlain-James (Trilogy Writing and Consulting, Norfolk, UK)
- Maria Koltowska-Haggstrom (Proper Medical Writing Warsaw, Poland)
- Laura Collada Ali (Teksema, Cogne, Italy)
- Simon Page (Cambridge Medical Communication Ltd, Cambridge, UK)
- Hervé Maisonneuve (Freelance, Lyon, France)
- Satyen Shenoy (Describe Scientific Writing & Communications, Cologne, Germany)
- Claire Gudex (Klinisk Institut, Odense, Denmark)
- Evguenia Alechine (Epsilon Scientific Communication, Buenos Aires, Argentina)
- Beatrix Doerr
Ad-hoc Editors:
- Amy Whereat (SpeaktheSpeech Consulting, Asnieres sur Seine, France)
Editor Emeritus:
- Elise Langdon-Neuner (Medical University of Vienna, Austria)