What a nominalization is
A nominalization is simply a verb wearing a noun costume, nothing more exotic than that. “Decide” becomes “decision.” “Approve” becomes “approval.” “Discuss” becomes “discussion.” The action is still there, buried inside a noun that needs its own separate verb to do anything.
Some writers call these “zombie nouns,” a name that fits well. The verb is technically dead, turned into a noun, but it shuffles around the sentence anyway, taking up space and doing none of the actual work.
A few more examples make the pattern easy to recognize: “explain” becomes “explanation,” “improve” becomes “improvement,” “argue” becomes “argument,” “assess” becomes “assessment.” In every case, a plain action word turns into an abstract thing, and the sentence needs a new verb to make that thing do anything at all.
Why writers reach for nominalizations
Nominalizations show up constantly in business, academic, and legal writing, and it’s worth asking why. Part of the answer is habit: formal-sounding writing has trained generations of writers to associate abstract nouns with seriousness. “Conduct an investigation” sounds weightier than “investigate,” even though it says less.
Part of the answer is also genuinely useful. Nominalizations let a writer talk about a concept across several sentences without repeating a verb awkwardly. “The implementation faced delays” can refer back to a plan described two paragraphs earlier, in a way “implementing” as a bare verb can’t always do as cleanly. The problem isn’t that nominalizations exist. It’s that they get used by default, even in sentences where the plain verb would work just as well and read more directly.
How nominalizations add words and hide actors
A nominalization costs you words and often drops the actor entirely. Compare these two sentences:
The team made a decision about the budget.
The team decided about the budget.
The first sentence needs “made” just to give “decision” something to attach to. The noun can’t act on its own, so the sentence borrows a generic verb to carry it. That’s the first cost: nominalizations almost always drag an extra verb along for the ride, usually a vague one like “make,” “conduct,” “perform,” or “provide.”
The second cost is subtler. Nominalizations often let a writer drop the actor entirely.
A decision was made.
Who decided? The sentence doesn’t say, and the grammar doesn’t require an answer. “Decision” is a noun now, and nouns don’t need a subject the way verbs do. This is also why nominalizations pair so often with passive voice: both patterns let a writer describe an action while quietly leaving out who performed it.
How to spot a nominalization
Most nominalizations end in a small set of suffixes: -tion, -ment, -ance, -ence, -ity, -ness, and sometimes -al. Spotting the suffix is the easy part. The harder judgment call is deciding which ones are worth fixing.
Some nominalizations are so common they’ve become the plain word for a thing, not a disguised verb. “Information,” “government,” and “situation” all end in one of these suffixes, but nobody would gain anything from unwinding them back into a verb. The rule of thumb: if a shorter, clearer verb sits right behind the noun, use it. If the noun has become the plain name for a concept, leave it alone.
Grouped by ending, the pattern gets easier to spot on the page. Watch for -tion words like “consideration” and “explanation,” -ment words like “requirement” and “agreement,” and -ance or -ence words like “assistance” and “performance.” Less commonly, -ity and -ness hide a verb too, as in “productivity” or “readiness.” These two suffixes catch far more genuine nouns than disguised verbs, though, so they need the closest judgment call of the group. When in doubt, try the swap and read both versions out loud. The better one is usually obvious.
Twenty nominalizations converted back to verbs
Most nominalizations you’ll meet in business writing come from a small set of verbs. Here are twenty of the most common, with the verb each one buries.
| Nominalization | Verb |
|---|---|
| utilization | use |
| implementation | implement |
| consideration | consider |
| recommendation | recommend |
| elimination | eliminate |
| participation | participate |
| communication | communicate |
| investigation | investigate |
| explanation | explain |
| evaluation | evaluate |
| development | develop |
| improvement | improve |
| requirement | require |
| agreement | agree |
| announcement | announce |
| assistance | help |
| performance | perform |
| maintenance | maintain |
| approval | approve |
| arrival | arrive |
Keep this list nearby while editing. Most of these swaps take seconds once you’ve spotted the noun, and the sentence almost always gets shorter along with it.
A paragraph, de-nominalized
Here’s a paragraph thick with nominalizations:
The implementation of the new policy required consideration of several factors, including the evaluation of staff availability and the coordination of departments. After discussion, the committee reached a decision, and the announcement of the results took place at the following meeting.
Every clause hides its verb inside a noun. Nobody is doing anything directly; things are just happening in the abstract. Here’s the same paragraph rewritten around its buried verbs:
Before implementing the new policy, the committee considered several factors. They evaluated staff availability and coordinated between departments. After discussing it, they decided, and announced the results at the next meeting.
Same facts, fewer words, and every sentence now says who did what. Count them: the first version runs 41 words, the second only 31, a quarter shorter without losing a single fact.
That’s the actual test for a nominalization. It’s not whether it exists in a sentence, but whether unwinding it makes the sentence say more, with less effort from the reader.
Check your own writing
Reading for -tion and -ment endings by eye works, but it’s slow and easy to miss in a long document. Run your text through the readability explainer to see nominalizations flagged automatically. Each one comes paired with a suggested verb where a clean one exists, and left alone where it doesn’t. For the related pattern of missing actors, our passive voice guide covers the other half of the same problem.