How to avoid overusing the verb “to be”

Eliminating the verb “to be” (is, are, was, were) from writing can improve your writing noticeably.  Yet eliminating “to be” verbs poses two problems.  First, easy-to-think of synonyms (seems, become) do not improve upon the weakness of “to be” verbs.  Second, students don’t want to take the time to think through strong alternatives.

Consider ways to help readers remember characters’ names.

Yet, strong alternatives exist.  Once students familiarize themselves with these alternatives, they will use them.

Alternative one:  Use an appositive.  Instead of writing, “Mario is my best friend.  He is on my soccer team,” write “Mario, my best friend, plays soccer on my team.”

Alternative two:  Keep the meaning but change the words and the sentence structure.  Instead of writing, “My sister was so disappointed when she didn’t get into Duke,” write “My sister moped around the house for days after she didn’t receive an acceptance from Duke.”

Alternative three:  Stick the idea in another sentence, and sometimes change the word order.  Instead of writing, “Olivia was overjoyed.  She was selected for the part of Annie in her school play,” write, “When Olivia learned she secured the role of Annie in her school play, she shrieked and danced through the house.”

To eliminate “to be” verbs as main verbs, students need to know the difference between main verbs and helping verbs.  Main verbs can usually be changed in the three ways mentioned above, but many helping verbs cannot be changed.  When writing the progressive verb tenses, forms of the verb “to be” need to be used as helping verbs, such as in “I am writing Grandma an email” or “The elephant had been trumpeting for her lost calf.”

When I tutor students, I ask them to write while I observe.  As questions arise, we discuss them.  Many times I see a sentence with the verb “to be” appear on a google doc only to be erased a moment later by my student and rewritten a different way, a better way—all without my saying a word.

My hope is that students apply the same thinking when I am not present.  One time a student of mine took an important writing exam.  I asked him if he did various things, and he replied, “Miss Kathy, I could hear your voice in my head.”  What a compliment!