Certain verbs, notably "make," "do," and "perform," are often used in situations where a much
better verb can be found. For example, "The priest did a check after the penitent made his
confession" is best recast as "The priest checked after the penitent confessed." Likewise, "I can't
make a determination on the basis of one symptom" should be written as "I can't base a
determination on one symptom," or, even better, "I can't determine it from one symptom." If
you find that most of your meaning is in your nouns, and very little is in your verbs, you should
be using stronger verbs. A symptom is excessive use of "is" and "are.