Nominalization and Writing 330

As an English/Education major, I come across nominalization in writing frequently. I usually don't see it in the novels/poems I read for class, but I have seen it many times in essays and literary criticism. I am not taking any English classes at this time, so I can't think of a good example of it, but I did take a class two terms ago where we spent a lot of time examining paragraphs for nominalization and changing those sentences to make them clearer. I have also experienced nominalization when reading education textbooks, especially when the authors are writing about statistics/facts.

This class has had more of an impact on my editing style than it has on my actual writing style. At first I felt like this class was making my internal editor go into overdrive. I was over-editing everything. However, now that I am becoming accustomed to the different rules and exceptions, I am trying to be more adventurous because of my new found knowledge. I know that I am still making mistakes, but I can correct most of them. Instead of wording my sentences differently to avoid unfamiliar rules or punctuation, I am taking chances and trying out new ways of writing what I want to say. It's going well so far!