Weak & Strong Verbs
"To be, or not to be: that is the question" - Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1

Not to Be

While Hamlet may have meant it as a question of existential concern, writers should think of "to be or not to be?" as a question of rhetorical concern. The verb to be and all of its irregular conjugations-- am, is, are, was, were, being, been-- often create ambiguity or wordiness in three various ways:

• Weak Verbs
• Passive Voice
• Expletive Constructions

Use Strong Verbs When You Can

Linguistically speaking, nominalization means to turn verbs, adjectives, and adverbs into nouns. English allows us to engage in this process easily. We turn terminate into termination, fail into failure, and overpopulate into overpopulation. The thing is: nominalization makes our writing wordy. For instance, we might write:

"Her contributions to the sciences were meaningful."

We, however, can certainly write this sentence more concisely by not nominalizing the verb contribute. We, instead, could say:

"She meaningfully contributed to the sciences."

So, we should remember, in proofreading and revising, to look for to be verbs and consider how we can use a verb in its place. As Poynter Institute's Roy Clark (2012) reminds, we should "[b]egin sentences with subjects and verbs. Make meaning early, then let weaker elements branch to the right" (para. 1)

Read more about avoiding nominalization here.