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#Watch: Using Strong Verbs

6 Comments on #Watch: Using Strong Verbs

This #Watch focuses on revision strategies that will strengthen your writing. Strong verbs can improve everything that you write. They are particularly helpful in your job application documents, since those strong verbs show off your capabilities.

I’m sharing this video today because you can apply these ideas to your Analysis project. In some of the columns of your table, you will most likely use fragments. Here’s an example for the kinds of writing I do:

Kind of Writing Description
Syllabus
  • Explains course goals and requirements.
  • Outlines the policies for the course.

The verbs in the Description column strengthen the document. Just as a reminder: Your tables should include more information than just description.

Find out more about how to revise for strong verbs by watching the video (2m10s).

 

Note: This video has closed captioning, so it does not need a transcript.


 

6 Comments

I tend to spend a lot of my time during revision identifying and altering my passive verbs. I dislike using “has” unless I’m talking about someone possessing something, because I feel that it really weakens the point I am trying to make.

Strong verbs force clarity into your writing. I struggle using strong verbs because I model my writing off of how I speak. This usually makes my writing a little witty, but my precision and clarity of the subject is lost.

I am certainly guilty of having too many words between the subject and the main verb in sentences. Although the example in the video was still difficult to fully comprehend after reading it once, I can see how moving the main verb closer to the beginning of a sentence can have a positive impact on my writing. This was a useful post to me. I will watch out for strong verbs hiding as nouns in my writing.

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