Local Revisions: Active and Passive Voice, Blog Post 5.4

The voice of a piece of writing or any other work is particularly decisive in grabbing the attention of the audience. Active verbs can vividly describe what the characters in a work are/were doing and why they did it. As well, active verbs keep the audience interested in the actions of any characters. Passive verbs are just as important; serving as the precursors to useful information or events. With this in mind, I looked over the verbs in my project and split the verbs into three columns: Active Specific, Active General, and Passive.

Verb List

Active Specific:

Identify

Saying x2

Believes x5

Released x2

Condensed x2

Forming x2

Impacting

Impacted

Revealed

Ignited

Launched x2

Rendezvous

Launch

Analyze

Landed

Analyzing

Rebutt

Quoted

Resolved

Published

Spawn

Claim

Contain

Maintain

States

Proven

Pictured

Writes

Explained

Reported

Collected

Determined

Conducted

Informed

Excited

Active General:

Look

See x2

Came x2

Are x4

Brought x6

Using

Took

Was x2

End

Set 

Would

Sent

Had

Exists

Appears

Put x2

Make

Agree

Happened

Were

Fell

Needed

Could

Travel

Bring

Return

Have

Found x2

Provide

Passive:

N/A

1. Looking at the breakdown of your verb choices here, what do you notice about your current draft? Are the actions in your piece mostly general, vague or non-specific? Are the actions mostly vivid and specific? Are there instances of passive voice? Summarize what you learned by analyzing your verb usage in this way.

I would say that my draft has a great deal of specific verbs. I tried to add some vivid description to the events that unfolded in the controversy. As well, I wanted to make sure that the audience could identify specific actions and events with specific verbs (e.g. the Rosetta probe landed on the comet). Some general verbs were used; but mostly to the effect of adding on to the specific verbs. There were no real instances of passive voice within my piece. Again, i wanted to ensure that specific events were being described in detail.

2. Based on this analysis, how could your use of verbs be improved overall in the project? Be specific and precise in explaining this.

I could perhaps try to include some passive verbs so that the audience doesn't get bored with the verbs at hand. Also, I could try to replace some of the more boring general verbs (e.g. Are) with more specific verbs. Overall, I felt as if I did a good job of picking specific and vivid verbs for my project.

Bria. Pellicola Film. February 13th, 2012 via Wikimedia. Public Domain.