A study of the verbs used in the management sections of nursing texts looked at the use of verbs as lexical items and grammatical forms and at their form-function relationship. The analysis of verbs as lexical items attempted to establish whether or not there was a common core vocabulary among the four texts studied. The examination of verbs as grammatical forms looked at tense, modal use, and voice. Investigation of the form-function relationship focused on types of communicative function occurring in the corpus. The results suggested that the four texts were similar in the way language was used and that they form a representative sample of the language needed to teach English for special purposes (ESP) in nursing. This method of using linguistic analysis to select appropriate instructional materials and samples of authentic language is recommended for other sciences. (MSE)