In reading articles and books — over time, I’ve learned to try to avoid beginning a sentence with “There” and using “is” or “are.” Doing this enriches your writing and encourages you to find more interesting verbs.
Write and Drop or Substitute
When I catch myself writing, “There are…” or “There is…” I complete the sentence. For example, “There are many books about computers.” Then, I rewrite it to drop “There are” and start the sentence with “Many” or substitute “There” with something else.
“Many books about computers …”
“The library carries many books about computers…”
Manuscript Analyzer can help dump those trouble words and phrases. It looks for frequently-used words and “identify junk phrases, ‘frequent offender’ word patterns, and adverbs.”
“Got” Has Got to Go
Use other verbs in place of “got” or “get” as another way to strengthen your sentence.
Instead of …
“He got a new car.”
Use …
“He bought a new car” or “He received a new car” (lucky guy!)
“Got” Gotcha
Need to add a gotcha based on work I’m doing for a client’s Web content. I’ve used “get” a few times because I don’t want to use “receive” too many times.
Other words such as “obtain, be given, accept, collect” don’t do the job. They feel awkward, they don’t flow naturally, or they don’t work.
“So you can receive what you need… ” doesn’t work as “So you can accept or collect what you need.”
In other words — you don’t have to kill “get” — but avoid it where possible or use it less.
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Great tip, Meryl. I need these sorts of reminders to remember to use the active voice.