"To Be" Verbs

Directions: read the following information on how Maria, a student writer, learned to eliminate "is" verbs and substitute livelier language in her writing.

After reading about Maria's revision process, examine one of your own essays. Mark all your "is" verbs and see how many you can eliminate by deleting unnecessary words and substituting action verbs such as conquer, argue, vanquish, or decide.

     Since several peer editors had mentioned Maria's wordiness and her mechanical transitions from one idea to another, she began to zero in on the first sentences of her paragraphs. She noticed a pattern to these sentences: They all began with a phrase such as "one of the reasons" followed by an "is" verb. Knowing that "is" verbs might cause wordiness, Maria began to examine these sentences. Could she give them more punch? She looked at the pattern of these sentences and realized that she was burying her important ideas at the end.

1) One of the reasons for homelessness is that the structure of families has changed in the last fifty years. (Important idea = family structure.)

2) Another reason is that there is high unemployment. (Important idea = high unemployment.)

3) A third reason for homelessness is the fact that there may be mental or emotional problems. (Important ideas = mental or emotional problems.)

4) And the final cause of homelessness may be addiction to rugs or alcohol. (Important idea = addiction to drugs and alcohol.)

Maria decided to move the important ideas to the beginning of her sentences, eliminate the "is" verbs, and find strong action verbs that would create pictures in her readers' minds.

First she re-wrote the sentence about family structure. She thought she would simply use the verb changed. She wrote: Family structure has changed in the last fifty years. But she realized that the verb "change" didn't create any pictures. So she began to list verbs on her screen that could express what has happened to family structure: words like declined, splintered, and smashed. She decided that the word "splintered" best created the picture she wanted her readers to see. Everyone would know what splinters look like; and everyone would know that they can hurt.

So Maria re-wrote the sentence about family structure this way:
Over the past fifty years in America, family structure has splintered, causing deep wounds to thousands.

     Next, Maria used the search feature of her word processor to find the sentence that reads is high unemployment. She realized that high unemployment was the important idea, but what verb could express what high unemployment does? It shatters, destroys, demolishes, erodes--all of these came to her mind. And she decided to create a strong picture by choosing the verb shatters.

     Maria knew that readers could imagine shattering. They had seen it before: in accidents, glass shatters; in earthquakes, walls shatter; in fights, relationships shatter. She knew that such a word carries strong images. This was the strong verb she wanted to substitute for the weak word "is". So she recast her sentence using the delete and move features of her word processor. Her new sentence read:
High unemployment shatters society: breaking workers' confidence; tearing at their self-images; forcing them to go into debt, to miss payments on mortgages, to slip lower and lower on the economic ladder.
     Maria was pleased with this new version of her sentence. She knew that it created powerful pictures of struggle and pain and that it would involve readers in the plight of the unemployed.

     Next she found the sentence that dealt with mental or emotional problems. ("A third reason for homelessness is the fact that there may be mental or emotional problems.") She deleted the first twelve words of the sentence and began with the phrase mental or emotional problems. Then she thought, what do mental or emotional problems do? They cripple, they shackle, they disable, they plague, they damage.

     Maria decided that "shackle" created just the picture she wanted. She felt that a picture of people being held prisoner by mental or emotional problems was powerful. She knew that in past history, people with mental or emotional problems had literally been shackled to posts or to their beds, and she felt that some of her readers might know that, too. She wanted to draw on the shudder that such an image could create, and she also want to use the connotations of that word to suggest that these people might be set free...if only the right key could be found.