{"id":724,"date":"2021-01-05T09:30:34","date_gmt":"2021-01-05T17:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/?p=724"},"modified":"2021-01-05T10:02:48","modified_gmt":"2021-01-05T18:02:48","slug":"enliven-your-writing-in-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/2021\/01\/05\/enliven-your-writing-in-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Enliven your writing in 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome back. I hope you had a good break.\u00a0We all needed a rest after an exhausting and challenging semester in the midst of a pandemic. \u00a0Would you like to join me in starting 2021 with a resolution to exhume \u201czombie nouns\u201d from your writing? In this humorous video, Helen Sword\u00a0contends that when we turn other parts of speech (verbs, adjectives) into nouns by adding a suffix, we create &#8220;zombie nouns&#8221; or <strong>nominalizations <\/strong>that\u00a0suck the life out of our writing, making it more abstract and difficult to read.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll take Sword&#8217;s example: &#8220;The <strong>proliferation<\/strong> of <strong>nominalizations<\/strong> in a discursive <strong>formation<\/strong> may be an <strong>indication<\/strong> of a <strong>tendency<\/strong> towards <strong>pomposity<\/strong> and <strong>abstraction<\/strong>&#8221; contains seven nominalizations and doesn&#8217;t leave us with a clear idea of who is doing what. Several of the bolded words started as lively verbs (proliferate, form, indicate, tend) and others started as adjectives (pompous, abstract), but they life drained from each of them with the added suffixes, which added unnecessary complexity.<\/p>\n<p>Reanimated, this sentence becomes &#8220;Writers who overload their sentences with <strong>nominalizations<\/strong>\u00a0tend to sound pompous and abstract.&#8221; Note that a human (the writer) was added for clarity. So much better!<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Beware of nominalizations (AKA zombie nouns) - Helen Sword\" width=\"604\" height=\"340\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dNlkHtMgcPQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Sword also created <a href=\"https:\/\/writersdiet.com\/test\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Writer\u2019s Diet<\/a>, a tool that measures words and constructions that weaken writing, for example be-verbs and zombie nouns. I tested a paragraph of a recently published article*, and zombie nouns were off the chart! Academics tend to use many nominalizations. Indeed, you may think of nominalizations as a <em>required feature<\/em> of \u00a0formal writing, and perhaps you&#8217;ve even <em>added<\/em> nominalizations to make your writing sound more &#8220;academic.&#8221; But as Sword says, nominalizations obscure meaning, and you want to communicate important ideas and research as transparently as possible. I invite you to join me in analyzing your writing this year to see if you can enliven and clarify your sentences by reducing nominalizations.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2029\/2021\/01\/Screen-Shot-2021-01-04-at-2.23.50-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-727 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2029\/2021\/01\/Screen-Shot-2021-01-04-at-2.23.50-PM-940x590.png\" alt=\"screen shot of the writers diet website testing an excerpt of flabby prose\" width=\"604\" height=\"379\" srcset=\"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2029\/2021\/01\/Screen-Shot-2021-01-04-at-2.23.50-PM-940x590.png 940w, https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2029\/2021\/01\/Screen-Shot-2021-01-04-at-2.23.50-PM-478x300.png 478w, https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2029\/2021\/01\/Screen-Shot-2021-01-04-at-2.23.50-PM-768x482.png 768w, https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2029\/2021\/01\/Screen-Shot-2021-01-04-at-2.23.50-PM.png 1192w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 604px) 100vw, 604px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Resources: <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sword&#8217;s tool and video are a good place to start. You can\u00a0add <a href=\"https:\/\/writersdiet.com\/writers-diet-microsoft-word-app\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the Writer&#8217;s Diet app<\/a> to your Microsoft Word program for free. Another resource on this topic is \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/owl.purdue.edu\/owl\/english_as_a_second_language\/esl_students\/nominalizations_and_subject_position.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">OWL&#8217;s page on nominalizations.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Write for us!\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Would you like to write for the blog?\u00a0 We welcome ideas and blog posts from graduate students, staff members, and instructors. Please send your query or post to Madeline Walker, Editor, at <a href=\"mailto:cacpc@uvic.ca\">cacpc@uvic.ca<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Before you write, please consider the following:<\/p>\n<p>We love content relevant to academic communication (reading, writing, presenting) and graduate students. We value<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n<ul>\n<li>a unique point of view,<\/li>\n<li>posts reflecting the diversity of UVic students,<\/li>\n<li>stories that illustrate difficulties and vulnerabilities,<\/li>\n<li>posts with practical tips and ideas,<\/li>\n<li>fresh topics,<\/li>\n<li>humour,<\/li>\n<li>content specific to UVic,<\/li>\n<li>and motivating and inspirational themes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Posts should be between 250-750 words and may be edited for clarity, grammar, and punctuation.<\/p>\n<p>If your post is accepted for publication, please provide a good-quality jpeg photo of yourself (not a selfie) and a short (2-3 sentence) biography.<\/p>\n<p>* This is the recently published article where I obtained the excerpt: Nils Dahl, Alex Ross &amp; Paul Ong\u00a0(2020)\u00a0Self-Neglect in Older Populations: A Description and Analysis of Current Approaches,\u00a0<em>Journal of Aging &amp; Social Policy<\/em>,\u00a032:6,\u00a0537-558,\u00a0DOI:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/doi-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca\/10.1080\/08959420.2018.1500858\">10.1080\/08959420.2018.1500858<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome back. I hope you had a good break.\u00a0We all needed a rest after an exhausting and challenging semester in the midst of a pandemic. \u00a0Would you like to join me in starting 2021 with a resolution to exhume \u201czombie nouns\u201d from your writing? In this humorous video, Helen Sword\u00a0contends that when we turn other &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/2021\/01\/05\/enliven-your-writing-in-2021\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Enliven your writing in 2021<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1511,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,12,86,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-writing","category-blogs-and-blogging","category-posts-by-madeline","category-writing-resources"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1511"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":741,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724\/revisions\/741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}