Comb through your latest writings - e-mail messages, business reports, etc. - and you'll likely discover many variations of the verb to be, especially are, is, was and were. You can perk up your writing by banishing most of them.
The problem with using to be and other passive verbs (e.g., to have, to make) is that they fail to provide the reader with a clear image. Take the sentence: Oscar is a runner in a track meet. The reader can only guess what Oscar is actually doing at the moment.
If you want the reader to be sure what Oscar is doing, revise the sentence so that is vanishes and an active verb replaces it. Examples: Oscar sprints down the track. Oscar stumbles at the finish line. Oscar collapses in the high-jump pit.
The latter three sentences contain precise, active verbs - verbs that translate into images that readers can conjure in their minds. These kinds of images also tend to stick. A day after reading about Oscar, a reader will remember him sprinting, stumbling or collapsing; images will pop back into the reader's mind. Not so with, Oscar is a runner in a track meet.
Some sentences require a passive verb. This month is August. Oscar is 40. But most of the time, you can replace the vagueness of to be with the clarity of an active verb.
Neil Chethik, aka the Grammar Gourmet, is writer-in-residence at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning (www.carnegieliteracy.org) and author of FatherLoss and VoiceMale. The Carnegie Center offers writing classes and seminars for businesses and individuals. Contact Neil at nchet@aol.com or 859-254-4175.