Nominalization in the English Major

I took the Writing 416 course in the fall and read so many other students' writing that was nominalized, and thought it sounded awful, and then realized that I do it too. It seems to happen when students are trying too hard to sound smarter. Then everything just comes off as dull and overly academic. I think I read a lot of nominalized writing and don't even notice it. I'm with Emily on this one too, that I thought I was a lot better at grammar than I really am and now I will just leave something out or switch it completely if I think it might be grammatically incorrect.