To Be or Not to BeVerb Choice

What You Should Know About Verbs The verbs of being are indeed verbs. The verbs of being are: am, is, are, was,

were, be, been, am. Sometimes we can avoid using a verb of

being with the – ing form of a verb to strengthen our writing.

Active voice can create cleaner, tighter writing.

Misunderstandings About Verbs Confusion that verbs mean only actions

(there are the verbs of being to contend with: am, is, are, was, were, be, been, am.

Confusion that passive voice is the same thing as past tense. Passive Voice: part of the verb “be” + the past

participle: was received. Past tense: received.

Verb Know How Verbs add action and movement to our writing. Verbs of being are important; sometimes they are

exactly what we need to convey the right meaning. But often the main verb will pack a more powerful punch if

it stands alone. Sometimes passive voice is the right choice, but very

often switching to active voice will make great improvements.

Active Voice Active Voice puts the actor or the subject of

a sentence near the front of the sentence so it can do or be.

Here is a sentence in the passive voice: Writing is weakened by the passive voice. We should move the subject of the sentence up

to the front: The passive voice weakens writing.

Invitation to Notice Strong Verbs It was like nothing on earth we had ever seen

before. Fred, Sam, and I stood in front of strange trees and giant ferns. A rocky cliff rose behind us. A volcano smoked ahead of us.

It was like nothing on earth we had ever seen before. Fred, Sam, and I were standing in front of strange trees and giant ferns. A rocky cliff was rising behind us. A volcano was smoking ahead of us.

Revising Verbs to Show Rather than to Tell. It was cold. The verb in this sentence tells. Stepping out of the overheated car, Hector

found himself shivering. He zipped up his flimsy nylon windbreaker and pulled the drawstring of the small hood snugly around his face although he knew this made him look like a turtle without a shell. These verbs SHOW! - Lynne Rae Perkins, Criss Cross (2005)

Combining Sentences to revise verbs of being.

Ingrid Levin-Hill was thirteen. She had her birthday three weeks ago. She was sitting and thinking. She was in her orthodontist’s waiting room.

Can we combine these sentences into one? How? Try your hand at it.

Revised Combined Sentence Ingrid Levin-Hill, a thirteen-year-old for three

weeks, sat and thought in the orthodontist’s waiting room.

Notice the insertion of an appositive surrounded by the commas.

Notice the verbs in active voice and the elimination of being verbs.

Use these strategies when instructed to revise your writing.

Appositives Appositives add information to sentences by

renaming nouns (people, places, or things). Appositives are next to the noun they are

renaming. Appositives need commas or dashes to offset

them from the sentence. Commas are not used if the appositive is necessary to the

meaning of the sentence. Use commas only if the appositive can be removed without changing the meaning.

Appositives Appositives add information to sentences

by renaming nouns—defining or summarizing them.

Appositives can give writers more ways to combine information and embed it in a sentence.

Appositives Appositive means being positioned next to

something, and this grammatical pattern is all about position.

Whether punctuated with a comma or a dash, an appositive should be positioned near the noun it describes. Mrs. Sullivan, the English teacher, speaks Pig-

Latin.

Appositives: More Examples Catherine the Great, my Russian grandma,

is already awake. Avon, a rather small snail, read a book

every day. Billybob, an editor, is brilliant. Sister Kathleen, our principal, visited our

class today.

Invitation to Write Try your hand at combining these

sentences using an appositive. Clementine is funny. She is in tenth grade. She lives in New York.

* You can put all of these thoughts about Clementine into one sentence.

Combined Sentence - Appositive Clementine, a tenth grader, lives in New

York. Another example:

Keith, the boy in the rumpled shorts and shirt, did not know he was being watched as he entered room 215 of the Mountain View Inn.

Invitation to Revise Captain Nathan Hale was a 21-year-old

schoolteacher just out of Yale College when he accepted a dangerous mission - Joy Hakim, The History of US: From Colonies

to Country, 1735 – 1791 (1993)

CREATE A NEW VERSION OF THIS SENTENCE USING AN APPOSITIVE.

Revised Version Captain Nathan Hale, a 21-year-old

schoolteacher just out of Yale College, accepted a dangerous position.

Uncovering How Writers Communicate with Readers Franks house looked like it had been drawn by a kindergartner with

only two crayons, lime green and sunflower.

Frank’s house looks like it was drawn by a kindergartner with only two crayons, lime green and sunflower.

Frank’s house looked like it had been drawn by a kindergartner with only two crayons, lime green and sunflower.

Frank’s house looked like it had been drawed by a kindergartner with only two crayons, lime green and sunflower.

Frank’s house looked like it had been drawn by a kindergartner with only two Crayons, lime green and sunflower.