Turning actions into nouns to lift the register
decide - decision / analyse - analysis / refuse - refusal
How to use this sheet
Nominalisation turns an action word into a thing word, so that the action itself can become the subject or object of the sentence. This does two jobs at once in an exam essay: it packs more information into fewer clauses, and it lifts the register, because formal written English prefers to discuss processes rather than people doing things. The noun is rarely predictable from the action word, so each pair has to be learned as a pair. The cost is that the doer disappears from view.
| Verb | Noun form | The noun in a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| decide | decision | The committee's decision came as a surprise to everyone. |
| grow | growth | Growth in the sector has slowed for three consecutive quarters. |
| fail | failure | The failure of the pilot scheme was entirely predictable. |
| analyse | analysis | Analysis of the survey data reveals two distinct groups. |
| reduce | reduction | A reduction in class size improves outcomes only up to a point. |
| expand | expansion | Expansion into overseas markets carries obvious risks. |
| arrive | arrival | The arrival of cheap solar panels changed the calculation entirely. |
| argue | argument | The argument for a second vote rests on a single point. |
| refuse | refusal | Her refusal to comment was widely reported. |
| assume | assumption | This assumption is never tested anywhere in the paper. |
| respond | response | The government's response to the report was slow and defensive. |
| apply | application | Application of the rule to part-time staff remains unclear. |
In use
Analysis of the transcripts suggests that the interviewer shaped most of the answers. The failure of the scheme owed less to funding than to the assumption that families would move. Any reduction in tuition fees would have to be matched by an increase in public funding.
Watch out
The failing of the pilot scheme was caused by the refusing of the council to fund it.
There are two traps. The first is the form itself: the endings are not predictable, and guessing produces something no examiner will read as academic writing. Rows two, three, seven, eight, nine and eleven each take a different ending from the commonest one, and row four rebuilds the word instead of adding anything to it - those seven have to be learned one at a time. The second trap is greed. Examiners penalise essays built entirely from abstract nouns, because such writing stops saying who did what and becomes impossible to argue with. Use the pattern to carry your topic sentences, and let ordinary action words do the work in between.