Tuesday, November 4 passive to active voice practice

In class: practice with active and passive tense.

Learning target: understanding and demonstrating the use of the active voice in lead writing.Remember that your leads are written in the active voice. Below is a review and practice examples. After reviewing the material, demonstrate that 
Active and Passive Voice

Summary: This examples below will explain the difference between active and passive voice in 

writing. It gives examples of both, and shows how to turn a passive sentence into an active one. Also, 

it explains how to decide when to choose passive voice instead of active.

Using Active Versus Passive Voice

In a sentence using active voice, the subject of the sentence performs the action expressed in the verb.

 The arrow points from the subject performing the action (the dog) to the individual being acted upon (the boy). This is an example of a sentence using the active voice.

The subject performing the action described by the verb.

 The active voice sentence subject (watching a framed, mobile world) performs the action of reminding the speaker of something.
Active voice is used for most non-scientific writing.Using active voice for the majority of your sentences makes your meaning clear for readers, and keeps the sentences from becoming too complicated or wordy. Even in scientific writing, too much use of passive voice can cloud the meaning of your sentences.

 The action is performed upon the sentence subject, meaning this sentence is passive (indirect).

This is an example of the active voice because the sentence subject performs the action.

This is an example of the passive voice.

This is an example of an active voice sentence because the sentence subject performs the action.

Image Caption: This is an example of the passive voice.

 This is an example of an active voice sentence because its subject performs the action expressed in the verb.

Sentences in active voice are also more concise than those in passive voice because fewer words are required to express action in active voice than in passive.

This passive voice sentence is less concise than its active voice counterpart (shown below).

This active voice sentence requires fewer words to communicate the same idea as the passive voice version (above).

This passive voice sentence is more wordy than an active voice version.

This active voice sentence is more concise than the passive voice version (above) because the subject directly performs the action.

 

YOUR TURN    Due by midnight. Send along as a word document.

1. The school was struck by lightning.


2. This morning the burglar was arrested by the police.


3. One type of air pollution is caused by hydrocarbons.


4. An elaborate supper for the miners was prepared by Mr. Patel and his children.


5. The cookies were stolen by the Mad Hatter.


6. New York City's Central Park was designed in 1857 by F.L. Olmsted and Calbert Vaux.


7. It was decided by the court that the contract was invalid.


8. The first commercially successful portable vacuum cleaner was invented by a janitor who was allergic to dust.


9. After Leonardo da Vinci's death, the Mona Lisa was purchased by King Francis I of France.


10. The allegorical novel Animal Farm was written by British author George Orwell during World War II.
11. Before the semester was over, the new nursing program had been approved by the Curriculum Committee and the Board of Trustees.
12.  With five seconds left in the game, an illegal time-out was called by one of the players.
13. Later in the day, the employees were informed of their loss of benefits by the boss herself.
14. The major points of the lesson were quickly learned by the class, but they were also quickly forgotten by them.
15. For several years, Chauncey was raised by his elderly grandmother.
16. An unexpected tornado smashed several homes and uprooted trees in a suburb of Knoxville.
17. Participants in the survey were asked about their changes in political affiliation.
18. Tall buildings and mountain roads were avoided by Raoul because he had such a fear of heights.
19. "The Yellow Wallpaper" was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
20. I was surprised by the teacher's lack of sympathy.