In the post Academic style: being concise and precise I mentioned nominalisation.
Nominalisation means changing verbs to nouns. It is often more concise, while tending to lead to more complex grammatical structures, and is a typical feature of academic writing.
Consider the following example:
Coronavirus cases are rapidly increasing, which is causing concern for public health officials.
The rapid increase in cases of coronavirus is causing concern for public health officials. (This sentence uses nominalisation, i.e. the verb has been changed into a noun.)
Nominalisation is not difficult to do once you are aware of it as an option. Used from time to time, when appropriate, it can add variety to your academic writing.
Knowledge of word families is useful for nominalisation. Use of an online dictionary can help you find the noun forms. On their Nominalisation page Academic English UK has a helpful list of common academic verbs and their nouns. This page also includes excellent examples and exercises to practice nominalisation.
More examples:
Without nominalisation: The researchers analysed various pricing reforms using both the cost and demand model results.
With nominalisation (version 1): The analysis of various pricing reforms used both the cost and demand model results.
With nominalisation (version 2): The analysis of various pricing reforms was carried out using both the cost and demand model results. (Here you can see how using nominalisation makes the grammatical structure more complex.)
Without nominalisation: When one country invades another, it is against international law.
With nominalisation: Invasion of one country by another is against international law. (Note that there is no article as the noun is used very generally. )
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