Language Arts Lesson 6
Writing Strategies: Organization and Focus (Grades 9-12)

Instruction 6-2

Controlling Impression, Coherent Thesis (Grades 9-10) | Active Verb Usage (Grades 9-10) | Elements of Discourse (Grades 11-12) | Reaching Rhetorical and Aesthetic Purposes (Grades 11-12) | Structuring Ideas and Arguments (Grades 11-12) | How to Use Rhetorical Devices (Grades 11-12) | Natural, Fresh, and Vivid Language Usage (Grades 11-12) | Summary

ACTIVE VERB USAGE (GRADES 9-10)

If you want what you write to be strong and authoritative, you should use active verbs. In speech we use plenty of personal words such as "I", "you", or "we" and active verbs. Most of the time we don’t even realize that we are using these words. However, this type of communication is better than much formal writing! Active verbs make the sentences more direct and easier to understand.

Formal writing often avoids personal words. Writers tend to use passive verbs. Perhaps they think the passive voice will make their writing seem more official. The problem is that using the passive voice makes writing wordy, confusing, and weak.

Look at these two sentences:

The show at the theatre was criticized by many audience members.

Many audience members criticized the show at the theatre.

Notice that the first sentence is a little more confusing to understand. It gives the same information as the second sentence, but it uses more words. Also, it is less powerful than the second sentence.

The first sentence uses the passive voice. It uses a “be” verb. “Be” verbs include words like am, is, was, were, be, being, and been. Let’s look at the first sentence again:

The show at the theatre was criticized by many audience members.

In this sentence, was is a “be” verb.

The second sentence uses an active verb. Active verbs include words like run, hop, hit, love, move, crash, remove, and so on. A reader will never be able to close his eyes and picture your passive verbs. What kind of picture does the word “is” create in your mind? However, a reader can envision words like run, hop, or crash.

Let’s look at the second sentence again:

Many audience members criticized the show at the theatre.

The word criticized is an active verb. Notice how much more direct and forceful this sentence is than the passive sentence. The reader can picture the word criticized.

Passive voice slows down your writing and makes it wordy. Imagine reading a whole paragraph of sentences that begin with "There is," "There are," "It is" or "They are." You can probably tell how that would get boring and monotonous after awhile. Using more active verbs eliminates wordiness and makes your writing much more interesting.

One passive sentence by itself doesn’t look too bad. But when you have a lot of them together, they make your writing boring, impersonal, and confusing.

Sometimes you will want to use a passive verb. But to keep your writing lively, try to make 80 - 90% of your verbs active.

Links for Students, Parents and Teachers

Now let's do Practice Exercise 6-2 (top).

Next Page:  Elements of Discourse (Grades 11-12) (top)