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Writer’s workshop

Writer’s workshop. Using active vs. passive voice. Active voice. In an active sentence, the subject is doing the action. Example: George kills Lennie . Passive voice. The target of the action (direct object) gets promoted to subject position. Noooo ! George is killed by Lenny.

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Writer’s workshop

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  1. Writer’s workshop Using active vs. passive voice

  2. Active voice • In an active sentence, the subjectis doing the action. Example: George kills Lennie.

  3. Passive voice • The target of the action (direct object) gets promoted to subject position. Noooo! • George is killed by Lenny.

  4. So What? • Doesn’t “George is killed by Lennie” sound better in a formal literature response? • Maybe….but the problem is, when you are writing long, complex sentences and you use passive voice, the result is usually a jumble of ideas that could be much more clear by using a straightforward sentence structure with active voice. • In other words: when you are already expressing complex ideas, simple structure is better!

  5. Which one is better? • I heard it through the grapevine. • It was heard by me from the grapevine.

  6. Sometimes passive voice is awkward and other times it’s vague. • Also, passive voice is usually wordy, so you can tighten your writing if you replace passive sentences with active sentence.

  7. Which sentence is better? • George ended up killing Lennie. Some people think this is unfair but I believe that George killing Lennie is totally justified. • George ended up killing Lennie. Some people think this is unfair but I believe that George was totally justified in killing Lennie. • At the end, George feels he has no choice except to kill Lennie. Although some readers may perceive this act as unfair, I believe that George’s final action was completely justified.

  8. How can you improve the following sentence? • Lennie being killed was an inevitable conclusion, because no matter what he would have gotten killed whether by George or Curley.

  9. Let’s write it in active voice: Before: • Lenniebeing killed was an inevitable conclusion, because no matter what he would have gotten killed whether by George or Curley. After: • It was inevitable that Lenny would be killed at the end, because he would have been killed either by George or by Curly.

  10. Better? What about: Before: • Lennie being killed was an inevitable conclusion, because no matter what he would have gotten killed whether by George or Curley. After: • It was inevitable that Lenny would be killed at the end, because he would have been killed either by George or by Curly. And now: Curly wanted Lennie dead, and George felt that that killing Lennie was the only reasonable choice. Therefore, Lennie’s death by his friend’s hand was an inevitable conclusion.

  11. One more: • Lennie is a simple man and loves to pet soft things as evidenced by him petting mice and puppies throughout the novella.

  12. Which one is better? • Lennie is a simple man and loves to pet soft things as evidenced by him petting mice and puppies throughout the novella. • Lennie is a simple man and throughout the novella, it is evident that he loves to pet soft things such as mice and puppies.

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