Transcript Active Voice - Mercer Island School District

Active Voice
•Where the subject of the sentence is doing
the action (Subject is doing something)
•Example: the boy kicked the ball
Passive Voice
• Where the target of the action becomes
the subject (Subject isn't doing anything)
• Example: the ball was kicked by the boy
Examples of Active Voice
• “I will assign presentation times.” (Stafford.)
• “I know you wrote poetry on Radow’s side of
the wall” (Stafford.)
• “Please bring your permission slips and
money.” (Stafford.)
• “We spent time discussing last night’s
homework.” (Stafford.)
• “I’m still in a little shock over the level of content
MIHS was allowed to deliver. (Stafford.)
• I’ll collect Gatsby take home tests tomorrow.”
(Stafford.)
•
Examples of
Passive
Voice
“At this inquiry she sat up and opened her
eyes.” (Fitzgerald. 220)
• “In his wallet Lieutenant Cross carried two
photographs of Martha.” (O’ Brien. 5)
Bad passive and active voice
• Depends on context
• Passive voice often good in science or reports
• “It has been found experimentally that the ratio of the
amounts of adenine to thymine…are always very close
to unity for deoxyribose nucleic acid.” (Watson.)
• No “we”
• Active voice: I made a Mistakes
• Passive voice: Mistakes were made
– Eliminate subject
• “The Money was stolen”
– (who stole the money?)
• Active voice often makes sentences easier to
understand
Activity
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She threw the ball (A/P)
The ball was thrown by her (A/P)
The DNA was sequenced by us (A/P)
We sequenced the DNA (A/P)
The money was stolen by a thief (A/P)
A thief stole the money (A/P)