Writing tip #14: Beware of nominalisations

When you make a noun out of another word (usually a verb or an adjective) you are nominalising it. For example, by changing the sentence, ‘He educated his son’ to ‘he gave his son an education’, I am nominalising the word ‘educated’. Academic authors frequently use nominalisation (or should I say: ‘academic authors frequently nominalise’?). Nominalising is OK, but don’t overdo it. You want your writing to be stylish, not just correct – right? By minimising nominalisations, your writing will be more powerful and you’ll have a better chance of adhering to writing tip #1: Be concise.

Here are some more examples of nominalised verbs, with a better alternative:

They undertook an investigation (They investigated)
We must come to a decision about … (We must decide on … )
She gave the appearance of being sad (She appeared to be sad. OR: she looked sad.)

Adjectives can be nominalised too. Again, it can be OK to nominalise an adjective, but always ask yourself which version is stronger. For example:

The street had considerable length … OR … The street was long

In this instance, I prefer the latter.