To Be Verbs Worksheet - english 1101 help PDF

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To Be or Not To Be? That is the Composition Question The dilemma: ontology (the study of Being) stands at the center of Western philosophy, but academic writing avoids unnecessary being verbs (am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been). Readers want strong verbs to move the action of your sentences and paragraphs instead of being verbs that stagnate through attribution. To assist you on your quest for writing perfection I present several ways to improve your verb use as you write. 1.) Avoid the construction “there is/are…” In addition to causing many subject/verb disagreements, this construction forces you to use a being verb when there is frequently a stronger verb available. For example, why say “There are many factors behind the Protestant Reformation” when you could say “Many factors caused the Protestant Reformation” or “The Protestant Reformation resulted from many factors”? Make sure you have a strong, clear subject before a strong, clear action verb for clean, concise prose. After all, there is nothing worse than this construction! Examples: In Europe, there were many changes occurring during the years 1300 until 1600. When a parent would send their kid away, that was letting the teenager grow up on the outside world where there would be fewer juvenile distractions. There may be a way to prevent using unnecessary “to be” verbs, but many people think there is no alternative.

2.) Avoid passive verbs Many unnecessary “to be” verbs are helping verbs in passive voice constructions. Eliminating passive voice may help eliminate unnecessary “to be” verbs and allow a smoother flow of your prose. After all, passive verbs are used poorly by most writers! Examples: This recycling system can be seen most prominently within the conception of culture. This idea can simply be displayed as an endless, everlasting cycling process. As defined by this essay, culture is a set of collective achievements by humans, such as myths.

3.) Attribution is never as interesting as action

The “to be” verb takes predicate adjectives or predicate nominatives, restating the subject or describing the subject instead of showing an action on another object. This helps make clear definitions or classifications, but it makes for uninteresting prose. After all, interesting prose is the result of exciting statements! Note: When editing your papers, ask yourself if the verb “exist” would make sense anywhere you see a “to be” verb. If yes, use the stronger verb “exist”; if no, rework the sentence with a stronger verb. Most often the answer will be no! Examples: Individualism is an ideology that states that people are their own person and not the subject of a monarch. Next is the notion of literature and how it changed during the renaissance. People are always reading and learning all of the time. It is not until several decades later that a scientist comes along and revives and revises the theory made earlier by Democritus....