Overuse of the verb "to be" is common in papers; the writer can easily fix the error with the simple insertion of a subject at the beginning of the sentence. Common usages of "to be" include the phrases "It is," "There is," "That is," "There are," etc. and these construction are weak, either burying the subject in the middle of the sentence or omitting the subject completely. For instance, consider the following sentence: "It is Wolfe's fault that the descriptions are so boring." Wolfe is the subject of the sentence but hidden within the sentence. To cut the "it is" from the beginning, simply place his name at the beginning, followed by a verb: "Wolfe faults in writing such boring descriptions."
Yet a bigger problem results when the subject is curiously not even in the sentence. Consider the sentence, "It is unfortunate that the bathrooms in North resemble a toxic waste dumping ground." The sentence contains an inherent subjectivity, so the writer should specify who exactly believes the statement. The proper construction would include the introduction of a subject, the most common being the plural of the first person, "we," followed by a new verb ("find"). Thus, "We find it unfortunate that the bathrooms in North resemble a toxic waste dumping ground." Now we have an active sentence successfully conveying the important point that the writer wants to get across.
---Mike D'Alessandro
