Verbs are the most intractable part of speech, so fear of them is widespread among novice business writers. And with good reason: Verbs energize readers, making them alert and curious. These are not the qualities you want in an audience, as they tend to make readers critical and more difficult to impress.

The bad news is that every sentence must have a verb. There's no way around it. Even when you have to write about something embarrassing — maybe an SEC investigation into backdated stock options that senior management doesn't want people to think about — you must use verbs. The good news is that you don't have to let verbs use you. You can use verbs in a way that repels rather than attracts readers.

Verb-depletion clusters. One of the best ways to handle standard verbs is to sap their energy with verb-depletion clusters (VDCs). The VDC does not eliminate verbs, but it does drastically reduce their ungovernable variety. This post will show you how to use three bland verbs — "conduct," "perform," and "engage" — to deplete the power of more energetic ones.

The VDC is easy to create:

1. Identify the main action in your sentence and turn the verb that describes it into a noun.
2. Make that noun into the object of one of the depleting verbs.

Here are three examples:

Normal writer's approach    BusinessSpeak writer's approach

Susan will investigate.           1. Susan will conduct an investigation

Susan will investigate.           2. Susan will perform investigative

                                                        activity.

Susan will investigate.           3. Susan will engage in the process of

                                                        investigation.


The short sentence on the left has all the liveliness that comes with the use of unrestrained verbs. It heightens readers' interest and raises lots of questions. Hey, everybody, look at this! Susan's going to investigate! Who? Why? What will happen next? Who's going to get fired? Will anyone be indicted?

Do you want to answer those questions? No, you don't. So you'd better prevent people from asking them. The best way to do that is by using the dispirited VDCs on the right.

Let's take a closer look at why VDCs can be the BusinessSpeak writer's best friend. Where "investigate" suggests a finding at some definite future date, "conducting," in the first sentence, does not connote action so much as a long and possibly inconclusive procedure. This is even more true of the second and third sentences: "perform ... activity" gives a sense of the mundane to even the most vigorous verb, and "engage in the process of ..." not only implies something boring and methodical, but uses more words.

The more words you can add to a cluster, the more readers will decide it's not worth the energy needed to plow through them — and readers who aren't tough enough to make it through your VDCs aren't likely to ask tough questions. You may announce, for example, that Susan will "engage in the process of completing an investigation," or "engage in the process of implementing an investigative procedure," or even "engage in the process of performing preparatory procedures for the conduct of investigative activity." These VDCs make reading such a chore and convey so little sense of action that most readers will forget there is an investigation even while they are reading your sentences. Mission accomplished.

Next post: Tame transitives.