The Passive Voice The English language has two voices--the active and the passive. The active voice and the passive voice differ in that a passive verb phrase has an additional auxiliary BE followed by an EN participle. In a sense, the English passive is "inflexible" when compared to the passive formation of other languages. For example, some languages use word order, verb inflections, and impersonal constructions to form the passive voice. In their book, The Grammar Book: ESL/EFL Teacher's
like, ’English is spoken by the majority of people in the world.’ or ’the cheese is eaten by my sister.’ Further more, a great amount of proverbs are said like, ’Rome was not built in one day’. Actually, passive voice penetrates into our daily life and more professional fields. Compare with the straightforward relationship between subject and verb in a context, the relationship of subject and verb in a passive voice context is that the subject receives the action of the verb. We utilize passive voice
As a college student and as an administrator I have had to write various documents, reports, essays and correspondence. I have taken a few writing courses that have marginally helped to improve my writing skills but I still do not feel completely comfortable with the final drafts I have produced. This journal entry will examine my previous experience with writing courses, strategies that have been successful, my strengths and weaknesses in writing and what I hope to gain from this course. My experience
Wang (2010) makes two similes. She compares grammar to the frame of a house, which is a decisive factor to ensure the solidness of it. Additionally, she regards grammar as a walking stick, whose function is to help and support students to learn English. Thus, the nature of grammar instruction manifests its own significance as it helps students enhance their overall language proficiency by integrating grammar into other aspects of learning, like listening, speaking, reading and writing. Although
instead does things his own way. Woolf opens by describing Donne as one that "leaps into poetry in the shortest way" (20). This meaning he has a way to get the audiences attention immediately. He speaks to his audience in a direct manner and is not passive. In some of his poetry he is completely direct by telling his
I chose to compare paragraphs one and two. Paragraph two is much more effective in giving me pertinent information, in a way that I can understand it. Paragraph two, although it did lack variety in its sentences, was more efficient, and to the point. It was full of facts that can be useful, without too much wordy language. The author of paragraph one would benefit from reading over her work and editing it for content. She jumped around from topic to topic, even within the same sentence. Although
Having not studies for ten years, I knew there were several areas in my academic writing that needed to be improved. After receiving feedback from ‘Writer’s Diet’ on my submission on ‘why teachers should be effective communicators’ (See Appendix 1) was extremely helpful on the specific points I should be focussing on when writing an academic paper; therefore hopefully improve and achieve a clearer and concise piece of writing to readers. Other resources I used to gain feedback on areas to improve
“Impacts of Smartphone’s on Society,” and the article from the natural sciences, “The Effect of Carpal Tunnel Changes on Smartphone Users,” are both filled with passive voice. Alternatively, the article from the humanities, “Using Smartphones to Supplement Classroom Reading,” is written in active voice with little to no passive voice. The writing style shows fairly similar comparisons to the use of language within the articles. “Impacts of Smartphone’s on Society” and “The Effect of Carpal Tunnel
respond to literature with writing. My strengths in writing consisted only of organizing my ideas, and forming thesis paragraphs and topic sentences, but my concision skills have drastically improved, and I have learned how to use active voice rather than passive. I have also improved my abilities to
sense of authority to nonliving objects, while further drawing attention away from the main character. Based on the implication of personification, the addition of simple sentence structure versus more complex sentences, and the integration of passive voice, Camus demonstrates the importance of this passage of the novel to the reader, while also comparing it to the rest of the book. Meursault gives simple nonliving objects authority as a way of excusing himself for his negative actions. At the point
and communication skills. Heading into the course, I thought there would be two main challenges to my success - the requirement of formatting my writings in the American Psychological Association (APA) style and recognizing and converting passive to active voice for more concise sentences. Prior to this course, all of my previous scholarly writings required Modern Language Association (MLA) style formatting and I have had a long-standing dysfunctional relationshi...
Structures The common structure of forming a passive voice is: BE + P.P ( the combine of “to be verb” with the “past participle” (P.P) of the main verb). We call this as “Be passive”. Be passive can be used in various tenses. Numbers Tenses Structure Example 1 Simple Present am/is/are + Past Participle (P.P) I am punished. 2 Simple Present Continuous am/ is/ are + being + P.P I am being punished. 3 Simple Past was/ were + P.P I was punished. 4 Past Continuous was/ were + being + P.P I was being punished
under its own conditions. In Tan's “Mother Tongue”, she discusses how her mother's incoherent language is “broken” and “limited” as compared to other native English speakers. When focusing on Amy Tan, she grows noticeably embarrassed with her mother's lack of acuteness in the language, which then influences Tan to “prove her mastery over the English language.” However, she soon learns from herself and -- most importantly -- her mother that a language's purpose is to capture a person's “intent, passion
discusses the strategies in teaching passive voice by evaluating Miss Wong’s pedagogical approach. In the second part, the author will write a proposal to suggest an alternative teaching method regarding passive voice. Some teaching activities are introduced, such as a TV program. B. Significance of Passive Voice Teaching passive voice is necessary. Although there is no absolutely relationship between passive voice and written texts, students are likely to drop passive voice when they want to write a narrative
of some class of words in a language" (Trask). For example, English nouns have the grammatical category of number. Thus the singular `dog' and the plural `dogs' exist but are not interchangeable in a sentence. A noun can be used only in its singular or plural form as there is no possibility of another form. English adjectives vary for degree; verbs for tense; pronouns for case etc. Traditional grammarians divide the words of English into eight classes or parts of speech- noun, pronoun, adjective
to the English government’s malfeasance. The debate concerns whether the English government should be held liable for the hunger and sorrows of Irishmen. Liam O’Flaherty contributes to this debate through his novel Famine; in it he defines who is to blame for the hunger of the 1840’s. Through his depiction, he suggests that the best response to ease the problem of the famine is by rebelling against the English government. In the novel, there are characters that choose to live in a passive matter
George Orwell’s 1946 piece “Politics and the English Language” acts as a critique towards the development of written English. The essay begins by stating that the expected decline in the intricacy of a language, will always have political and economic causes, although, the degeneration is accelerated due to the imitation of poor writing habits. Orwell then asserts that in order to control this slump, writers must be wary and conscious of the words they use and why they use them. The failure to do
really needs to unite and help rebuild cities and states from disasters, certain civil right groups continue to introduce and push us to "think in new ways" creating "the possibility of a new reality" (Kleinman 396). The claim is that sexism in the English language has harmed women. Is the claim true? I think not! As Americans, we study our history to hopefully we do not repeat mistakes done in the past. Perhaps in the past, "man" has harmed women, denied women certain human rights that every person
are in a circle, looking like scarecrows. They are stuck in a realm of half world half Hell, not making the entire journey to Hell itself. The hollow men are timid and scared to speak up, because they know that their voice is meaningless. The second section
paper and turn them in for a decent grade. Upon coming into English 1101 with this lax mindset, I immediately encountered many weaknesses in my writing, struggling with constructing an essay with a proper direction, style and grammar. As I began reviewing my problems, I started understanding these issues and eventually learned to improve upon them. From my portfolio, I hope to demonstrate my improvement upon these weaknesses in English 1101. One of my main weaknesses in my writing was developing