1 Response to Robust Verbs-Eaglesfan

1. davidbdale says:

   April 4, 2024 at 10:24 am

   A huge difficulty in Vancouver has risen with heroin addicts committing crimes to support their habits. Vancouver is trying to help the situation with the “free heroin for addicts program which tries to stop the addicts.

   —Not bad, EaglesFan, but if you’re really interested in Robust Verbs (and I hope you will be from now on), you can find them in drafts of most weak-verb sentences. For example, you’ve got “commit” here, and “support,” and “stop,” but you relegate them to secondary status. They don’t rule your sentences. Instead, you went with “has risen” and “is trying,” both weak.

   —How can you revise to promote those stronger words to primary roles? First of all, forget having to tell us Vancouver has a problem. Just show us the problem. We’ll figure it out.

   — “Heroin addicts ROB and MUG the good citizens of Vancouver to support their habits.”

   — “The city has SOLVED the problem, at least in part, by providing ‘free heroin for addicts.'”

   —Good trick, right?

   The issue of large crime rates rising can be attributed to the addicts. Addicts have a rough time getting through their day to day lives and activities such like jobs, interactions, and relationships are hard to keep because of the addiction.

   —Burglaries and prostitution for drugs also RAISE the crime rate.

   —Your second-sentence verbs are “have” and “are.” See the problem? Where are the strong subjects and verbs?

   —Desperate addicts without jobs, without spouses, without lasting relationships disturb the peace of the community.

   Heroin users being addicted to the drug makes them do whatever they can to get their hands on it, and the crimes they will commit for it are most commonly breaking and entering as well as stealing.

   —Be VERY WARY of any “being anything” phrase. It’s usually a lazy noun. Does “heroin users being addicted to the drug” cause anything? Sure. But so does
   “Heroin addiction.”

   —Whenever possible, skip the vague preamble to your actual claim. Instead of “whatever they can do to get their hands on a drug” followed by examples . . .

   — “Addicts burglarize their neighbors, break into cars, mug fellow citizens, and prostitute themselves for their next fix.” Once you’ve vividly spelled out the details, there’s no need to summarize with “whatever.”

   Heroin users will stop at nothing to try and retrieve this drug for their addiction, and the program won’t help to ween the users off the drug addiction. The program wants to only save the city from increasing crime rates if they want to.

   —Most of the first sentence repeats what was just said, but the second half introduces the new and important claim that the program does not ween addicts from the drug.

   —You can “only save the city from increasing crime rates if they want to” or you can “lower the crime rate.”

   Giving the drug to the addicts will result in them getting off the streets as well as preventing them from committing the crimes while also keeping them out of the hospital.

   —You can “RESULT in getting them off the streets” or you can use the better verb: GETS them off the street.

   Hospitals are stuck dealing with people who want to use these harder drugs or even worse, unsanitary needles and the addicts then have to pay unaffordable bills and this visit makes it harder for them to cope without the drug.

   —Do addicts INFECT one another by SHARING dirty needles?

   —When they’re RUSHED to the hospital, do they DISPLACE other patients, maybe OVERWHELM the emergency room, RACK UP bills someone else will have to pay, . . . ?

   The program gives addicts free heroin in the most sanitary way possible, which will result in fixing the city but not fixing the issue of the addiction these users face.

   —Does it SOLVE any problem? Does it IGNORE another?

   I hope you find this helpful and not too intrusive, EaglesFan. By all means revise your work and submit for a Regrade if you think it’s worth the effort.

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