Local Revision: Passive and Active Voice

Below are lists of all my verbs in the active (specific), active (general), and passive voices. It was difficult for me to find verbs in the passive voice but I think that was because I did not include very many in my draft.

Rowley, Keith. “Experimental Voice Group Singer.” 10/22/08 via Flickr. Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic.

Active (Specific):

• sparked
• diminish
• praised
• insists
• deserved
• disrespected
• portrayed
• preparing
• diminishing 
• lauded
• deserved
• involved
• dividing
• defending
• downplayed
• sparked
• participating
• hone
• practicing
• raise
• committed
• represents
• isn’t clamoring
• staking
• defending
• paints
• blurred
• reviewed 
• establish
• discern
• establish
• has devoted
• dance 
• perform 
• denying
• poured
• protect
• expressed
• reiterates 
• denied
• ingrained
• broadcasted
• dichotomize
• celebrated

Active (General):

• received
• stood
• watching
• is 
• are
• is
• trying 
• were
• let
• is
• had
• feel
• hold 
• was
• are
• given 
• spoke out 
• carried out 
• saying
• was
• telling 
• say
• reported
• was asked
• spent
• would say 
• spent
• speaking out 
• has
• stated
• have
• made
• had
• count
• has come out 
• credited
• stands
• called
• to think 
• creates
• were

Passive:

• was
• split 
• was filmed
• is backed 
• was given 
• are willing 
• will remain

Questions:

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 noticed that I mainly use the active voice, and barely include passive voice in my draft. However, I did a good job of using a lot of specific active verbs and not just general verbs. I could still benefit from adding even more verbs that are vivid and descriptive. 

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 change up my voice more by including more verbs in the passive voice to make my QRG more interesting. I could also include more vivid verbs to describe my story to stimulate my readers’ five senses.