Active and Passive Voice Changing passive tense verbs to active verbs!

Active vs. Passive  In a sentence with active voice, the subject is doing the action.  In a sentence with passive voice, the object of the action is promoted to the subject position.

Active Voice Example 1   "Steve loves Amy." Steve is the subject, and he is doing the action: he loves Amy, the object of the sentence.object

Active Voice Example 2   Another example is the title of the Marvin Gaye song “I Heard It through the Grapevine.” "I" is the subject, the one who is doing the action. "I" is hearing "it," the object of the sentence.

Passive Voice Example 1   "Amy is loved by Steve." The subject of the sentence becomes Amy, but she isn't doing anything. Rather, she is just the recipient of Steve's love. The focus of the sentence has changed from Steve to Amy. Why would you want to change the focus?????????

Passive Voice Example 2   If you wanted to make the title of the Marvin Gaye song passive, you would say “It was heard by me through the grapevine,” not such a catchy title anymore.

Not all sentences with the verb “to be are passive!!!  “I am holding a pen” uses the ‘to be’ verb ‘am,’ but it’s in active voice, not passive. The passive voice version would be “The pen is being held by me.”

Is Passive Voice Bad?  Passive voice is often wordy, vague, or awkward. If I say, “Amy is loved,” you don’t know who loves Amy. Passive voice is useful when you want to change the focus or shift the focus elsewhere. “Your gas will be turned off” sounds friendlier than “We, the gas company, are turning off your gas!”

Source: ckanddirtytips.com /active-voice- versus-passive- voice.aspx Written by Mignon Fogarty

A Quick Word on Fragments

Fragments  A fragment is a clause that is missing either a subject, verb, or both and doesn’t express a complete thought.

A tip for catching fragments  Generally, if you read your paper backwards (from end to beginning), you will find that you catch the fragments easily.