How to Edit Noun Strings in Your Writing

Anthony R. Garcia

A noun string is a phrase composed of consecutive nouns, where the final noun is modified by the nouns that precede it.

Though not inherently a problem, noun strings can soak up energy from your sentences and lead to a style that is stiff, stodgy, and stilted.  Sometimes called noun stacks, noun strings characterize much of the bloated expressions we see in academia and bureaucracy.

Examples of Noun Strings in a Sentence   

I had to complete a workplace conflict management course. 

You must sign the information disclosure authorization form.

I found a useful online mortgage payment calculation tool.

Noun strings weigh down sentences by restricting movement.  A noun is the opposite of movement; it refers to things that are still, to ideas, abstractions, concepts, people, places, and things.  A noun can be the object of an action or the agent of an action, but never the action itself.

Noun strings can cause readers to work harder than they should to understand your message.  This is because readers have to mentally untangle the underlying relations that hold the noun string together, when simple verbs and prepositional phrase would saved them the trouble.

How to Snip a Noun String

One way to fix a noun string is to start at the end of the string and work backwards, changing nouns to verbs, verb forms, and prepositional phrases.  For example, look how the following noun string is revised by reversing the word order and changing the word form:

Original

I had to complete a workplace conflict management course.

Revised

I had to complete a course for managing conflict in the workplace.

In the revised version, two nouns are replaced by the prepositional phrases for managing conflict and in the workplace to create a better rhythm and a bit more movement.

Here’s another example:

Original

You must sign the information disclosure authorization form.

Revised

You must sign a form authorizing disclosure of your information.

Or

You must sign a form to authorize disclosure of your information.

In the first revision, authorization is changed to the participle authorizing.  The participle still functions as an adjective (just as the noun authorization did), but, as an –ing word, it does a better job of conveying movement.

In the second revision, authorization is changed to the infinitive to authorize, which, as an adverbial phrase, is more closely tied to the action and movement of the sentence.

One More Example

Original

I found a useful online mortgage payment calculation tool.

Revised

I found a useful tool for calculating my mortgage payment online.

Notice in the revision above that the noun calculation is changed to the gerund calculating; gerunds are no different from participles in that they can recover some of the underlying movement that gets locked up within heavier noun forms, especially those ending in -tion.

Notice also that by moving online from its position before the head noun (tool) to a position that follows the head noun, the function of online changes from an adjective to an adverb describing where the calculating is to be done (it’s done online).

Note:  The process of turning verbs into nouns is called nominalization, which weighs sentences down when done excessively.

Not All Noun Strings Are Bad

Commonplace Noun Strings

Nouns strings with only two nouns in the string are commonplace and often quite acceptable:

Dog food

Basketball player

Job description

Noun Strings as Jargon

Noun strings are commonly used in the jargon of bureaucracies and organizations, but as much as we all hate jargon, sometimes revising a noun string to eliminate jargon can lead to more serious problems for the writer—that of inconsistency.  Jargon exists because it serves a purpose for the people using it, namely that it speeds up communication and conveys important distinctions in the meaning and purpose of written material.

Let’s look at one scenario where it might not be wise to revise a noun string:

You must sign the Information Disclosure Authorization Form.

Let’s even add another noun to the string:

You must sign the Personal Information Disclosure Authorization Form.

If the phrase highlighted above is the specific title of a document used in an organization, then revising it can cause confusion.  Large organizations work with numerous documents and forms for very specific situations, and changing the wording even a little can lead to the same form being called different things in different places by different people.  Such inconsistency wastes time.

Your Turn.  Revise the Following Noun Strings

Our job is easier since we’ve been using the new information management system.

This week, I have to complete my employee work performance assessments.

Writing has become easier thanks to my new document processing program.

I enrolled my daughter into a basketball shooting skills training program.