A Write Right Teaching Blog
My murder-mystery protagonist, Matthew Diggerson, teaches college writing and gets embroiled in murder, and I’ve decided to give him his own blogs, the third of which is this one below. If you’re interested in my stories or just writing/teaching, then you might enjoy these little texts. – D.G.Gillespie.
Professor Matthew Diggerson
Ocean View College
When you hear the word “grammar,” you logically think “errors,” but did you know that most students’ main grammatical issue deals with a widespread problem beyond fragments, run-ons, and displaced modifiers? In fact, if you want to improve your own sentencing control, then take the advice I’ve given thousands of college students: edit for unnecessary weak-verb phrasing—i.e., “is” and “are.” Note this example (and keep in mind who wrote it, an author of professional writing textbooks): “Wordiness is often signaled by lazy or careless writing.” See the irony? See how wordiness affects even the best of writers?
If you can’t yet see the irony, study the “is” phrasing. Weak verbs like is and are are called “linking verbs” because they connect the subject to something, usually an object, operating like an equal sign. For that linking reason, they carry no images, such as strong verbs like “run” and “display,” and images convey information. If you think of the verb “signal,” your mind will shift to the image of a sign, so you will better understand a statement. Now go back to the professional writer’s assertion about wordiness: it “is often signaled.” Now do you see the irony? This writer’s warning about wordiness actually contains wordiness, for he easily could have said this: “Wordiness signals lazy or careless writing.” Just by editing out the weak-verb phrasing, the writer could have followed his own advice, saying exactly the same thing in six words, instead of nine. Those three extra words—is, a, and of—provide just clutter, verbiage, and this problem of using unnecessary weak-verb phrasing runs rampant through college students’ papers—and probably your sentences, too.
You can conquer this bad habit with one easy step, what I call a “conciseness tool,” this question: Who/what does what? If the professional writer had used this query, he could have transformed his wordy statement immediately, and with some practice, you can, too. I tell my writing students that they can improve seven out of every ten sentences containing “is” or “are,” and that number might even be low. Of course, you will need to use those linking verbs at times, but remember this analogy: Like weeds in a garden, weak verbs will sprout in your sentences and spread, so use the conciseness tool to weed them out. Your readers will thank you.