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Topic: Passive voice

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	ASU Writing Center - Online Handouts - Avoiding the Passive Voice (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Passive voice, in writing, results from the overuse of the "be" verbs: am, is, was, were, be, being and been.
		Passive voice is the opposite of active voice, which results from the use of action verbs like run, hop, hit, love, move, crash, remove, assemble, etc.
		Use the passive voice when the O is more important than the S, as in a report for a science lab.
	www.asu.edu /duas/wcenter/passive.html (600 words)

	Editing and Resision / Active and Passive Voice /English 3880 SF Lawrence
		Active voice means that the subject of the verb performs the action; in other words, the subject is the doer, the agent of change, the go-getter, the mover, and the shaker.
		Passive voice means that the subject of the verb receives the action; in other words, the subject is the affected, the influenced, the inactive, the motionless, and the submissive party.
		Passive voice is especially useful when the agent is unknown, unimportant, or if the action should receive the emphasis instead of the agent.
	personal.ecu.edu /lawrences/UW/ecrevise/ecreviseactive.html (295 words)

	Supporting English Acquisition
		The passive voice is an important grammatical structure that appears in every form of written and spoken English.
		Passive voice constructions can be especially insidious, for failure to understand them correctly can actually lead to a misinterpretation of vital information.
		Passive voice structures are an essential component of English rhetorical structure.
	www.rit.edu /~seawww/passivevoice/psintroduction.html (297 words)

	OWL at Purdue University: Printable Handouts:Active and Passive Voice
		In sentences written in passive voice, the subject receives the action expressed in the verb; the subject is acted upon.
		Passive voice makes sense when the agent performing the action is obvious, unimportant, or unknown or when a writer wishes to postpone mentioning the agent until the last part of the sentence or to avoid mentioning the agent at all.
		The passive voice is effective in such circumstances because it highlights the action and what is acted upon rather than the agent performing the action.
	owl.english.purdue.edu /handouts/print/grammar/g_actpass.html (919 words)

	Active / Passive Voice
		The passive voice requires a "double verb" and will always consist of a form of the verb "to be" and the past participle (usually the "en/ed/t" form) of another verb.
		Passive sentences can be easily transformed into active sentences when the object of the preposition "by" is moved to the subject position in the sentence.
		Passive: The tunnels are dug by the gophers.
	www.uark.edu /campus-resources/qwrtcntr/resources/handouts/activepassive.htm (1341 words)

	§ 7. uses of the passive voice. 2. Style. The American Heritage Book of English Usage. 1996 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		By using the passive voice the writer is able to avoid identifying the guilty party.
		Surprisingly enough, you can also use the passive voice to emphasize the performer of the action by putting the performer in a prepositional phrase using by at the end of the sentence: The breakthrough was achieved by Burlingame and Evans, two researchers in the university’s genetic engineering lab.
		The passive voice allows them to avoid calling attention to themselves and to omit reference to any subjective thoughts or biases they might have brought to their work.
	www.bartleby.com /64/C002/007.html (1032 words)

	The Passive Voice (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		In most cases, avoid the passive voice ("Jim is being driven to distraction by his hamster") in favor of the more concise active voice ("Jim's hamster is driving him to distraction").
		The passive voice is useful under certain circumstances; for example, if the precise subject of the action is not known ("My car was spray-painted last night") or if the receiver of the action is more important ("The Emperor was assassinated last night").
		The main problem with passive sentences is that they are wordy: "The theme that was most dealt with by the 16th Century poets was.
	web.uvic.ca /wguide/Pages/SentPassiveVoice.html (380 words)

	Active VS. Passive Voice
		Active and passive voices refer to the relationship between the subject and the verb.
		The passive voice has its specific uses in writing, but most of your writing will not need the passive voice, because the active voice makes your writing stronger and livelier.
		If you find you are using the passive voice in your writing, here are three steps to help you turn a passive sentence into an active one.
	www.lavc.cc.ca.us /WCweb/activepassive.html (459 words)

	Back to Basics: Passive Voice
		It is not the verb that determines passive voice.
		I changed the passive voice -- it was locked -- into an active voice: she had locked him out.
		The voice is passive because love isn't doing anything, but I thought it conveyed a stronger sense of what Dallas was feeling when I began the sentence with love, rather than ending it with love.
	www.lorraineheath.com /articles/btb_passive.htm (503 words)

	UNC Writing Center Handout \| Passive Voice
		Use of the passive voice is not a grammatical error.
		While the passive voice can weaken the clarity of your writing, there are times when the passive voice is OK and even preferable.
		Passive constructions are easy to spot; look for a form of "to be" (is, are, am, was, were, has been, have been, had been, will be, will have been, being) followed by a past participle.
	www.unc.edu /depts/wcweb/handouts/passivevoice.html (2395 words)

	Composition. Strunk, William, Jr. 1918. Elements of Style
		This rule does not, of course, mean that the writer should entirely discard the passive voice, which is frequently convenient and sometimes necessary.
		A common fault is to use as the subject of a passive construction a noun which expresses the entire action, leaving to the verb no function beyond that of completing the sentence.
		As positive statement is more concise than negative, and the active voice more concise than the passive, many of the examples given under Rules 11 and 12 illustrate this rule as well.
	www.bartleby.com /141/strunk5.html (4130 words)

	[No title] (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		In the active voice, the subject of the sentence, which usually appears at the beginning of the sentence, is performing the action of the verb.
		The passive form of a verb consists of a form of the verb to be plus the past participle of the main verb.
		The passive voice of the verb is appropriate when the performer of the action is unknown or is less important than the receiver of the action.
	www.touro.edu /esl/P_AVOICE.HTM (261 words)

	[No title] (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Grammatical voice is a verb-form that indicates the relationship between the subject and the action expressed by the verb.
		The former sentence is said to be in the active voice and the latter in the passive voice.
		For example, in "The casserole cooked in the oven", "cooked" is syntactically active but semantically passive, putting it in the middle voice.
	www.informationgenius.com /encyclopedia/g/gr/grammatical_voice_1.html (295 words)

	Passive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		In electronics it describes components, circuits or pieces of equipment that perform no amplification and consume no power other than from the signal itself.
		Passive is a song by A Perfect Circle from the album eMOTIVe and from the soundtrack of the movie Constantine.
		In any sexual activity involving penetration, passive refers to the receiving party, and active to the penetrating one.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Passive (136 words)

	Revision: Passive Voice (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		You are using passive voice when the object of your sentence is the actor while the subject of your sentence is the person or thing receiving the action.
		The passive voice is often excessively formal, wordier, less forceful, and harder to understand than the active voice.
		Using the passive voice weakens your sentences because, instead of doing something, the subject of a passive sentence is receiving an action (thus it is "passive").
	www.ucalgary.ca /UofC/eduweb/writing/IV_3.htm (176 words)

	Multilingual Writers' Corner: Active / Passive Voice
		The passive voice is a form of sentence structure that subordinates the subject of the sentence--the source of action or agency--and in some cases suppresses mention of the subject-actor completely.
		You would use the passive voice when you do not want the reader's attention to be focused on the subject, when you prefer the subject's agency in the action not to be seen, or when you want the action to be highlighted but it is not relevant to mention who performed it.
		You should use the passive voice consciously and strategically, as a rhetorical tool, when appropriate to achieve a desired persuasive effect, or to vary sentence structure in a longer passage.
	www.law.cuny.edu /wc/multilingual/active_passive.html (751 words)

	Sentence structure & voice (active vs. passive)
		More specifically, a passive voice sentence either puts the action (the verb) first and the actor (the subject) second, or leaves the actor out altogether, making it hard for a reader to understand who is doing what to whom.
		The passive voice sentence does not tell us who or what is invading his space, so what is happening is not clear to the reader.
		The instances in which you use the passive voice are infrequent; use the active voice unless you consciously decide that the passive voice is the most appropriate.
	www.esc.edu /ESConline/Across_ESC/WritersComplex.nsf/3a61b0fa73fb9d7f8525671d0049f39d/a960c7b3cdb23c0b852569c300715592?OpenDocument (387 words)

	[No title] (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Active voice verbs stress the doer, whereas passive voice verbs stress who or what receives the action or has the action done to it.
		When writing in the passive voice, your reader becomes a detective and must hunt for the performer of the action.
		In addition, the passive voice, by its construction, is more wordy than the active voice.
	www.ecsu.edu /ECSU/AcadDept/llc/WritingLab/style2.html (643 words)

	Passive Voice (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		The passive voice of a verb simply means the form of the verb used when the subject is being acted upon rather than doing something.
		The passive voice is formed by taking the appropriate tense of the verb to be and adding the past participle.
		The passive should only be used if the doer is unknown or unimportant, or if more emphasis is put on the receiver of the action than the doer.
	englishplus.com /grammar/00000359.htm (112 words)

	1.3f - Voice
		The "voice" of a verb has to do with whether or not the subject of a sentence acts upon something else (as agent) or whether the subject is acted upon (by an agent).
		The passive verb, while sometimes necessary, requires more words than the active verb, has less impact than the active verb, and generally suggests passivity, hesitancy, or a lack of clarity on the part of the writer.
		Active voice is performative; passive is static, even though action and agency seem to exist in the sentence.
	www.ucalgary.ca /UofC/eduweb/grammar/course/speech/1_3f.htm (757 words)

	passive voice
		For active voice sentences, the verb is the action element of the sentence, the subject is the "doer" of the action, and the object is the recipient of the action.
		When considering the last example sentence (the one about the book translation), the passive voice version actually sounds much better because we wish to focus on the book (which received the action of translation) not on the agent or person who performed the action.
		The passive voice can be recognized through the use of a "double verb" and is formed by using a form of the verb "to be" and the past participle of another verb.
	oregonstate.edu /dept/eli/buswrite/passive_voice.html (886 words)

	Writer's Block - Writing Tips - Active Versus Passive Voice
		It is most effective for minimizing the role of the person performing an action, or for leaving out the actor altogether, when the action, and not the individual's identity, is the crucial point.
		Still, "avoid the passive voice" seems to have been translated into "write in the active voice at all costs", with its own pitfalls.
		A person with a less-than-solid grasp of grammar might take "is enabled" for a passive verb (where an unknown actor did the enabling), when the reality is that the active verb of being ("is") is followed by a predicate adjective ("enabled") describing the state of the Widows and Orphans Protection.
	www.writersblock.ca /tips/monthtip/tipmar97.htm (490 words)

	Diana Hacker: Language Debates: Passive voice (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Passive sentences are wordier than their active counterparts.
		And, in the words of Bryan Garner, the passive voice “subverts the normal word order for an English sentence, making it harder for readers to process the information” (483).
		Occasionally the passive voice may be used to smooth a transition from old information to new (by placing old information in the subject position).
	www.dianahacker.com /writersref/subpages_language/passive.html (386 words)

	Passive Voice: Active vs Passive (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		The passive voice is often used to change the focus of attention from the acting subject to the object of a current action.
		The passive voice is very often used when we describe a process or procedure because we are less concerned with who has done something that with what is done.
		An impersonal style is achieved by using the passive and, in particular, by beginning sentences with It...
	www.uazone.org /friends/esl4rus/passive.html (126 words)

	Hamilton College - Writing Center - The First Deadly Sin: Passive Voice
		Passive voice produces a sentence in which the subject receives an action.
		Passive voice often produces unclear, wordy sentences, whereas active voice produces generally clearer, more concise sentences.
		To change a sentence from passive to active voice, determine who or what performs the action, and use that person or thing as the subject of the sentence.
	www.hamilton.edu /academics/resource/wc/sins/sin1.html (225 words)

	Voice: Active and Passive (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Because the subject is being "acted upon" (or is passive), such sentences are said to be in the passive voice.
		Because passive voice sentences necessarily add words and change the normal doer-action-receiver of action direction, they may make the reader work harder to understand the intended meaning.
		As the examples below illustrate, a sentence in active voice flows more smoothly and is easier to understand than the same sentence in passive voice.
	wwwnew.towson.edu /ows/activepass.htm (371 words)

	Passive Voice (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Revise sentences in which you do not explicitly state who is doing what to whom.
		Passive voice = was, is, being, or has been + a verb in the past tense.
		John "did" the "kicking." John is the grammatical subject of the sentence.
	www.digitalmedievalist.com /english10a/passivevoice.html (43 words)

	Passive Voice
		The prevalence of the passive voice in government and industry and in science and technology amazes those who meet it for the first time.
		The passive voice weakens style when it is used, consciously and unconsciously, to evade responsibility.
		A popular passive construction is "It is thought that....' used anywhere but in science or technology, this indicates that a general opinion or truth follows.
	www.cs.umd.edu /~nau/passive-voice.html (770 words)

	English Grammar: Active Voice, Passive Voice (EnglishClub.com) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		This is the voice that we use most of the time.
		You are probably already familiar with the active voice.
		In the passive voice, the subject receives the action of the verb:
	www.englishclub.com /grammar/verbs-voice.htm (93 words)

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