This handout is available for download in PDF format. Active verbs are important components of any academic writing! Just as in other forms of writing, they work as engines, driving the action of your ...

Whether you write on a part- or full-time basis, you can benefit from becoming more familiar with an often-overlooked aspect of writing that is treated in today’s column: active and passive voice ...

The “voice” of verbs (active or passive) is different than the “tense” of verbs. Tense defines action within time, when the verb happens. Voice defines the relationship between subject ...

3. Use active verbs as much as possible. It’s hard to ban all passive voice — the “to be” verbs (is, are, was and so on) — but your writing will sound more interesting with more action.

I begin by asking what an active verb is (a verb that conveys an action ... following the exercise you can ask students to find a passive sentence in their essay and change it to active. The computer ...

Writing in the active voice makes the meaning clear while ... Active voice verbs can appear on their own and do not require "be" as a helping verb. When an active verb does have "be" as a helping verb ...

Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab) “Active verbs move action and reveal actors. Passive verbs emphasize the receiver, the victim.” -Vicki Krueger In journalism, an active voice is generally ...

It’s a prescription for writing success long promoted by writers and teachers. Active verbs propel the reader. They bring action to the page. They are concise (compare “walk back and forth ...