Active verbs engage the reader's brain

If you want your readers to really connect with what you write, if you want them active and engaged as they read, then you should try to use more active verbs. This is old advice; writing guides have long advised us to use active verbs. But now we know why they work so well at stimulating reader interest.

It boils down to this: Your brain can’t tell the difference between reading about kicking a ball and actually kicking a ball.

Your brain has a strip of tissue that runs from ear to ear, called the somatomotor cortex, or motor cortex. This is the part of your brain that controls voluntary movement. Any voluntary actions you do—dancing, running, picking up your coffee cup, stroking a child’s head—are planned, controlled, and carried out by the actions of the motor cortex.

Here’s where it gets interesting: Researchers have discovered that the motor cortex lights up with activity when people read active verbs.

 As volunteers read a verb referring to a face, arm, or leg action—such as lick, pick, or kick—the motor cortex areas that control the specified action exhibit high rates of blood flow, a sign of intense neural activity, say neuroscientist Friedemann Pulvermüller of the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, England, and his colleagues. For instance, reading the word lick triggers pronounced blood flow in sites of the motor cortex associated with tongue and mouth movements.

Something to remember whatever you write, then: Active words engage the reader’s brain as if they are actually doing the activity. You can’t always use an active verb for everything you write, but this should encourage you to use them more often.

(Thanks to Chip Scanlan of Poynter Online for calling our attention to the research.)