At this point in time, I should have received your lead questions and analysis. The grades are up-to-date in powerschool. Thank you to the many who sent along their work on time.
Newsleads are written in the active voice. Below is a review and practice examples. After reviewing the material, you will demonstrate your understanding of active and passive voice through the examples at the end of the blog. This assignment is due by midnight tomorrow for full credit. Materially received afterwards will be deducted 25 points.
A Brief Grammatical Refresher
PLEASE TAKE YOUR TIME AND READ CAREFULLY. THIS INFORMATION IS KEY TO WRITING A NEWS ARTICLE.
The key to understanding passive voice lies in accepting the fact that it's strictly a grammatical term which relates to how sentences are constructed. A quick grammar brush-up might be useful here. Read over the following:
The subject of a sentence is, essentially, what the sentence is about. It's usually a person, place, or thing. In most sentences, the subject is either doing some sort of action or being described. Almost all of the time, the subject is at the very beginning of an English sentence. (e.g. "Bob is silly.")
The object of a sentence appears at the opposite end, always after the action in the sentence. It, too, is usually a person, place or thing, and in most sentences it's the person, place, or thing to which the action is being done (e.g. "I laughed at Bob."). Not all sentences have objects, of course—just look at "Bob is silly," above.
Verbs are action words. Sometimes they're just used to describe states of existence (e.g. "Bob is silly."), but in most sentences you write they'll be actions (e.g. "I laughed at Bob.")
Understanding passive voice really all comes down to verbs. Whenever you put a verb in a sentence (that is: all the time), you are using one of two kinds of "voice," which is really just a fancy way of saying that you're deciding how "to indicate the relation of the subject [of the sentence] to the action." (Definition quoted from OED Online).
A Concise Explanation of Passive and Active Voice
There are two types of voice in English: passive and active.
Active voice is the most common, and results when the subject of a sentence is also the agent. That is, when the subject is the person, place, or thing doing the action. So you might say, for example, "I hit John with a stick." That's in the active voice because you, the subject of the sentence, are also the agent—you are doing the action, hitting John with a stick. (John is the object, and also the patient, being hit.)
Passive voice, on the other hand, results when the object of the sentence is doing the action (or is the agent), and the subject is receiving it (or is the patient). To continue abusing John, we might say "John was hit with a stick." This is passive voice because John, the subject of the sentence, is the one being acted upon.
To spot passive voice, here's all you need to do:
Examine the relationship between the subject, object, and verb of a sentence. If the object is the thing doing the verb, the sentence is passive. If the subject is the thing doing the verb, the sentence is active.
Problems with Passive Voice
For the most part, you probably want to write in the active voice when possible. That's because sentences written in active voice are generally clearer, more direct, and more compact.
The main problems with passive voice, then, are as follows:
It can be wordy. A lot of the time, passive voice requires awkward, lengthy, convoluted sentences instead of short, punchy, straightforward ones. "I found Jim's body odour atrocious" will end up "Jim's body odour was found to be atrocious by me"—yikes!
Most of the time, moving passive voice sentences to active voice will tighten your prose, make it more readable, and as a result confuse your readers less.
It can be vague. Take this example: "Bob was hit by a stick." With a sentence like that in your story, readers are going to be missing some important information: who was doing the hitting? Too much vagueness like this isn't only off-putting, but it can actually confuse your readers about what's going on so much that they'll have to either closely re-read the whole scene, or just give up and go read something else.
By moving vague passive voice constructions into active voice, you can make your story's action crystal clear.
Active Voice
- The school was struck by lightning.
- This morning the burglar was arrested by the police.
- One type of air pollution is caused by hydrocarbons.
- An elaborate supper for the miners was prepared by Mr. Patel and his children.
- The cookies were stolen by the Mad Hatter.
- New York City's Central Park was designed in 1857 by F.L. Olmsted and Calbert Vaux.
- It was decided by the court that the contract was invalid.
- The first commercially successful portable vacuum cleaner was invented by a janitor who was allergic to dust.
- After Leonardo da Vinci's death, the Mona Lisa was purchased by King Francis I of France.
- The allegorical novel Animal Farm was written by British author George Orwell during World War II.
- Before the semester was over, the new nursing program had been approved by the Curriculum Committee and the Board of Trustees.
- With five seconds left in the game, an illegal time-out was called by one of the players.
- Later in the day, the employees were informed of their loss of benefits by the boss herself.
- The major points of the lesson were quickly learned by the class, but they were also quickly forgotten by them.
- For several years, Chauncey was raised by his elderly grandmother.
- An unexpected tornado smashed several homes and uprooted trees in a suburb of Knoxville.
- Participants in the survey were asked about their changes in political affiliation.
- Tall buildings and mountain roads were avoided by Raoul because he had such a fear of heights.
- "The Yellow Wallpaper" was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
- I was surprised by the teacher's lack of sympathy.
Rewrite the following paragraph is active voice. Note some are already in active voice. Read carefully!
Last summer our house was painted by me. The job took about two weeks. First, the exterior was washed using warm water and a mild detergent. Then all the chinks and pores in the walls were sealed with putty. After the putty had had a chance to dry, the exterior could be painted. A latex paint was used because it is easy to apply and cleans up with water. A whole week was needed to finish this part of the job. I was very careful to apply the paint evenly because I did not want to have to apply two coats. A color was used that was very close to the original color. Our house is a two-story house, which meant that a tall ladder was needed to do the second story. The paint can had to be balanced on the top rung of the ladder while I worked. When the job was finished, a great deal of satisfaction was felt by me. I had to pat myself on the back. Even my dad said that a good job was done.
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