Understand and appreciate how nominalisation contributes to formal writing

Understand and effectively use nominalisation and other formalisation techniques

How to apply Performance Standards and thinking techniques to reviewing and improving your work

Informal Writing Style

Colloquial – Informal writing is similar to a spoken conversation.  Informal writing may include slang, figures of speech, incomplete sentences, brackets and so on.  Informal writing takes a personal tone as if you were speaking directly to your audience. You can use the first or third person point of view (I and we), and you are likely to address the reader using second person (you and your).

 

Simple – Short sentences are acceptable and sometimes essential to making a point in informal writing. There may be incomplete sentences or ellipsis (…) to make points.

 

Contractions and Abbreviations – Words are likely to be simplified using contractions (for example, I’m, doesn’t, couldn’t, it’s) and abbreviations (e.g. TV, photos) whenever possible.

 

Empathy and Emotion – The author can show empathy towards the reader regarding the complexity of a thought and help them through that complexity.

 

Formal Writing Style

Complex – Longer sentences are likely to be more prevalent in formal writing. You need to be as thorough as possible with your approach to each topic when you are using a formal style. Each main point needs to be introduced, elaborated and concluded.

 

Objective – State main points confidently and offer full support arguments. A formal writing style shows a limited range of emotions and avoids emotive punctuation such as exclamation points, ellipsis, etc., unless they are being cited from another source.

 

Full Words – No contractions should be used to simplify words (in other words use "It is" rather than "It's").  Abbreviations must be spelt out in full when first used, the only exceptions being when the acronym is better known than the full name (ABC or NATO for example).

 

Third Person – Formal writing is not a personal writing style.  The formal writer is disconnected from the topic and does not use the first person point of view (I or we) or second person (you).

Academic writing frequently uses nominalisations; that is, the noun forms of verbs.

The process of nominalisation turns verbs (actions or events) into nouns (things, concepts or people).

The text is now no longer describing actions: it is focused on objects or concepts; for example:

We walked for charity.

The verb 'walked' has been nominalised to the noun 'walk'

The charity walk .....

As you can see from the example above, when a verb is nominalised, it becomes a concept rather than an action. As a consequence, the tone of your writing will sound more abstract and also more formal; for example:

We walked for charity. We raised money for the Leukemia Foundation.

The charity walk raised money for the Leukemia Foundation.

 

These examples are adapted from: Perez, A. (Learning Skills Unit, University of Melbourne) Academic Language.

Here is an extract from a biology report. Nominalisation has been used frequently in this passage, creating a more academic, abstract tone. (The nouns formed as a result of nominalisation of verb phrases are bolded.)

 

Many Australian plant species produce seeds with fleshy appendages called elaiosomes. It was hypothesised that elaiosomes are involved in the dispersal of seeds by ants. To test this hypothesis, the removal of seeds with elaiosomes was compared to seeds from which the elaiosome had been removed and observations were made to confirm that the agents of seed removal were indeed ants. It was found that the removal of seeds with elaiosomes was significantly greater than those without elaiosomes. Observations of the seed removal process confirmed that ants were the only agents of seed removal.

 

The frequent use of nominalisation was one factor responsible for the difference in formality between the model texts.

 

Formal Text

Informal Text

The inequity in the distribution of wealth in Australia is yet another indicator of Australia's lack of egalitarianism. In1985, 20% of the Australian population owned 72.2% of the wealth with the top 50% owning 92.1% (Raskall, 1988: 287: ). Such a significant skew in the distribution of wealth indicates that, at least in terms of economics, there is an established class system in Australia. McGregor (1988) argues that Australian society can be categorised into three levels: the Upper; Middle and Working classes. In addition, it has been shown that most Australians continue to remain in the class into which they were born (McGregor,1988: 156) despite arguments about the ease of social mobility in Australian society (Fitzpatrick, 1994). The issue of class and its inherent inequity, however, is further compounded by factors such as race and gender within and across these class divisions. The relative disadvantage of women with regard to their earnings and levels of asset ownership indicates that within classes there is further economic inequity based on gender.......

Because only a few people have most of the money and power in Australia, I conclude that it is not an equal society. Society has an Upper, Middle and Lower class and I think that most people when they are born into one class, end up staying in that class for their whole lives. When all three classes are looked at more closely, other things such as the differences between the sexes and people's racial backgrounds also add to the unequal nature of Australian society. Women earn less than men and own less than men. Why is this

 

Crime was increasing rapidly and the police were becoming concerned.

 

Germany invaded Poland in 1939. This was the immediate cause of the Second World War breaking out.