Name: ______
Senior Debate
Thursday, December 9, 2010
I am arguing the Affirmative/Negative. My topic is:______
Thesis Statement:______
Supporting Points/Reasons:
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3 Sources Cited (so far):
Copy your citation in the blank (use the UNC citation builder on Ms. Disher’s website), and use the lines to explain how the source is useful to you (what you learned from it) and examine its reliability (relevant, reliable, recent).
- ______
- ______
- ______
- ______
- ______
- ______
Active and Passive Voice
The term voice, when used in English grammar, refers to the structure of a sentence. There are two “voices” in English grammar, active voice and passive voice.
Active Voice: In an active voice sentence, the agent (the one who does the action in the sentence) is stated explicitly as the grammatical subject. The thing that the agent does something to (the direct object) comes after the verb. Here’s an example.
Active Voice Sentence: Julio cooked fried rice.
“Julio” is the agent. He’s the one who does the action. In this case, he’s the one who cooked the rice. In this active voice sentence, Julio is the grammatical subject. What did Julio cook? He cooked fried rice. The words fried rice make up the direct object. The fried rice is the thing that the agent (Julio) does something to. In this case he cooked it.
Passive Voice: In a passive voice sentence, the thing that the agent does something to, is placed as the grammatical subject of the sentence. The agent (the one who does the action) is placed after the subject, usually in a prepositional phrase. In fact, sometimes the agent is hidden, not even mentioned.
Passive Voice Sentence: The fried rice was cooked by Julio. (The agent is mentioned.)
Passive Voice Sentence: The fried rice was cooked. (The agent is not mentioned.)
In Academic Writing, Use the Active Voice. Use the active voice in most of the writing you do in school and at work. Studies in readability indicate that active voice sentences, where the agent is stated first, are easier to understand than passive voice sentences.
So When Should You Use the Passive Voice?
1. When the receiver of the action is more important than the agent.
Active Voice: The Nobel Foundation awarded President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize.
Passive Voice: President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The passive voice construction places the emphasis on the receiver of the Nobel Peace Prize, not on the organization that awarded the prize.
2. When you consciously try to minimize the role of the agent or the agent is not known.
Active Voice: Marie Jenkins could not complete the status report because James McDonald misplaced the manufacturing data.
Passive Voice: The status report was not completed because manufacturing data were misplaced.
3. When you write about scientific, technical, or natural processes.
Active Voice: The conveyor belt delivers the shrink-wrapped product to the packing station.
Passive Voice: The shrink-wrapped product is delivered to the packing station.
Using active voice or passive voice is a stylistic and rhetorical choice about sentence structure. It’s important to understand the structure so that you control the structure instead of letting the structure control you. But remember; use the active voice in most of your academic and work-related writing.
Grammar Worksheets: Active and Passive Voice
Exercises: Convert each sentence from active to passive or from passive to active. Justify your decision.
1. When the Phillies's Shane Victorino overran him, third base was stolen by Johnny Damon.
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2. A happy Thanksgiving is wished by me for everyone.
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3. The attorney general indicted the notorious gangster, Al Capone, for federal income tax evasion.
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4. The student services committee forwarded revised disciplinary procedures to the campus president.
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5. The acceptance letter from Harvard was received by Jenny Arteaga last Tuesday.
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Three Warning Signs of Passive Voice
Convert the sentence to active voice. Ask yourself three questions to identify the dreaded passive voice.
1. Is there a form of the verb "to be" in the sentence, such asis/ am/ are/ was/ were/ be/ being /been? (It is impossible to create the passive voice unless the author uses a "to be" verb.)
2. Could one insert the phrase "by so-and-so" after the verb? If so, would the sentence still make sense? If so, you may have passive voice. For instance, "the dog was fed" (by his owner).
3. Identify the subject and the main verb in the clause. Is the subject "doing" the action? Or is it sitting passively while some outside agent "does" the verb to the subject?
Passive Voice Exercise:
Egad! Some grammatical vandal has converted E. B. White's active voice sentences into passive voice structure. Rescue his writing! Convert the passage to active voice.
Exercise A:
One summer, along about 1904, a camp was rented by my father on a lake in Maine, and we were taken there for the month of August. Ringworm was gotten from some kittens, and Pond's Extract had to be rubbed on our arms and legs night and morning, and a canoe was rolled over in by my father with all his clothes on; outside of that the vacation was thought to be a success, and from then on it was thought that there was no place like that lake in Maine. It was returned to summer after summer--always on the first of August for one month. Since then a saltwater man has been made out of me, but sometimes in summer I am made to wish for the placidity of a lake in the woods by the restlessness of the tides and the fearful cold of the sea water in the afternoon and evening, which is blown across by the incessant wind. A few weeks ago this feeling was experienced by me so strongly that a couple of bass hooks and a spinner were bought and the lake that used to be visited by us was returned to by me for a week's fishing to be done and for old haunts to be revisited.
--adapted from "Once More to the Lake," by E. B. White.
(Forgive, me, Mr. White, for the stylistic blasphemy I have made of your work.)
Exercise B:
Convert the following to active voice and hear how much easier it is to understand!
My dating life has been ruined by my new roommate, Joey. Joey's not a rude guy, or anything. Far from it, he's actually friendly and good-natured. Women are driven from my life by his lack of house cleaning. Our apartment is the social equivalent of a cancerous tumor. When the building is entered by one of my dates, the first object that is noticed by her is that a trashcan is moldered in by an apple half-eaten by someone. The edge of the television is drooped over by a slice of week-old pizza. She is buzzed at angrily by a swarm of flies, before a pile of unwashed socks is settled back down on by them. Perhaps those socks gleamed white in some distant age, fresh from K-Mart, but no longer. Visitors are nauseated by the smell; the coup de grace is administered by that part. When the apartment is entered by a woman, the girl is fought back against by the apartment. Invaders are driven off by Joey's slovenliness far more effectively than any security system. Sure, small talk will be made by the girl for a while, whose nose is wrinkled up by her. Sure, a drink or two will be had, and the bottle and glass eyed suspiciously for unidentifiable stains. The problem is that the apartment is never stayed in long by her, and my phone calls are never returned by her afterward. A new roommate is needed by me. Otherwise, my love life will be destroyed by Joey.