Chapter 8 Summery

Chapter 8 in Rules For Writers by Diana Hacker talks about how to use verbs more effectively. There are passive verbs and active verbs. Passive verbs lack strength because the subject receives the action instead of doing the action. Active verbs tend to be more interesting and hold the reader attention better. With active verbs it is the subject that is doing the action.

When you want to emphasize the subject you use active verbs and when you want to emphasize the action and not the subject you use passive verbs. For example when writing a story you will most likely use more active verbs then passive verbs then if you were writing up an experiment.

There are also be verbs (be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been). These verbs work best when you are linking a subject to a noun. Sometimes though using a be verb can make the wording seem dull. In cases like that it is best to try to use a different verb.

I really enjoyed reading this chapter because I find verbs to be very important in writing and what makes it interesting. I had not thought of there being different types of verbs before reading this chapter. Now when I write I’ll try to think more about what verbs I’m using and what verb could be used to make it better.