Unnecessary Nominalization

Using the subjects and verbs of your sentences for the key actors and actions will reduce words and emphasize important ideas.

Avoid nominalization

* The occurrence of the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, is an event occurring about December 22.

The winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, occurs about December 22. 

Nominalizations are common and necessary in academic writing, but too many nominalizations may make a text hard to process. Often you can make a sentence more straightforward by replacing a noun by a verb. 

Avoid weak verbs

* The earth's axis has a tilt as the planet is in orbit around the sun so that the northern and southern hemispherse are alternately in alignment to the sun.

The earth's axis tilts as the planet orbits the sun so that the northern and southern hemispheres alternately align towards the sun.