***
Recap below ****
Recap
participles used as adjectives (-ing to describe someone or something; -ed to
describe how a person feels).
Present
Participle (-ing) is used to describe something
or someone.
"I watched an interesting TV show about American history last night."
"This film is boring. Let's stop watching it."
"I watched an interesting TV show about American history last night."
"This film is boring. Let's stop watching it."
Past Participle (-ed) is used to describe how people feel about something
or someone.
"I'm interested in American history."
"I'm bored of my job. I want to find another one."
"I'm interested in American history."
"I'm bored of my job. I want to find another one."
p.
80 Exercise 13
Use the verb in each sentence to make two new
sentences. In one sentence,
use the present participle (-ing). In the other, use the past participle (-ed).
Example: The game entertains the children.
The game
is entertaining. (present participle; describes game)
The
children are entertained. (past participle; describes how the children feel)
1.
The movie frightened the children.
The
movie was frightening.
The
children were frightened.
2.
The
book interests the children.
The
book is interesting.
The
children are interested (in the book).
3.
The
children are amusing the adults.
The
children are amusing.
The
adults are amused.
4.
The
trip tired the children.
The
trip was tiring.
The
children were tired.
5.
The
game excited the children.
The
game was exciting.
The
children were excited.
6.
The
vacation exhausted the adults.
The
vacation was exhausting.
The
adults were exhausted.
7.
The
movie bored the adults.
The
movie was boring.
The
adults were bored (by the movie).
8.
Chaplin
interests me.
Chaplin
is interesting. (describing another thing or person)
I am
interested in Chaplin. (how I feel)
Exercise 14
Fill in the blanks with the correct participle, present or past, of the
verb in parentheses ().
Last
night my friend and I went to see a new movie.
We thought it was boring. (example: bore). It had a lot of stupid car
chases, which were not exciting (excite) at
all. And I didn’t like
the
characters. They weren’t very convincing (convince).
We
were pretty disappointed
(disappoint) because the reviewers said it was a good movie. They said it had amazing (amaze) visual effects. But for me, it wasn’t interesting (interest) at all. I was annoyed (annoy) that I wasted $10 and a whole
evening for such a disappointing
(disappoint) movie. The only thing that
was satisfying (satisfy)
was the popcorn.
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Passive Voice – when to use it; when to avoid it.
What is passive voice?
In English, all sentences are
in either "active" or "passive" voice:
active: Werner Heisenberg formulated the uncertainty
principle in 1927.
passive: The uncertainty principle was
formulated by Werner Heisenberg in
1927.
In an active sentence, the
person or thing responsible for the action in
the sentence comes first.
I baked a cake.
The cake was baked by me.
In a passive sentence, the
person or thing acted on comes first, and the actor is added at the end,
introduced with the preposition "by." The passive form of the verb
is signaled by a form of "to be": in the sentence above, "was
formulated" is in passive voice while "formulated" is in
active.
In a passive sentence, we often
omit the actor completely:
When do I use passive voice?
In some sentences, passive
voice can be perfectly acceptable.
You might use it in the
following cases:
1.
The actor is unknown:
The cave
paintings of Lascaux were made in the Upper Old Stone Age.
[We don't
know who made them.]
2.
The actor is irrelevant (not important)
An
experimental solar power plant will be built in the Australian desert.
[We are
not interested in who is building it.]
3.
You want to be vague about who is responsible:
Mistakes
were made. [Common in bureaucratic writing!]
4.
You are talking about a general truth:
Rules are
made to be broken. [By whomever, whenever.]
5.
You want to emphasize the person or thing acted on. For example,
it may be your main topic:
Insulin was first discovered in 1921 by
researchers at the University of
Toronto.
It is still the only treatment available for diabetes.
6.
You are writing in a scientific genre that traditionally relies
on
passive voice. Passive voice is
often preferred in lab reports
and scientific research papers, most notably
in the Materials and Methods section:
The sodium
hydroxide was dissolved in water.
This
solution was then titrated with hydrochloric acid.
In these sentences you can
count on your reader to know that you are the one who did the dissolving and
the titrating. The passive voice places the emphasis on your experiment
rather than on you.
Note: Over the past several
years, there has been a movement within many science disciplines away from
passive voice. Scientists often now prefer active voice in most parts of
their published reports, even occasionally using the subject "we"
in the Materials and Methods section. Check with your instructor or TA
whether you can use the first person "I" or "we" in your
lab reports to help avoid the passive.
To learn more about the use of
passive voice in the sciences, visit our handout on writing in the sciences.
When should I avoid passive voice?
Passive sentences can get you into trouble in academic writing
because
they can be vague about who is responsible for the action:
Both
Othello and Iago desire Desdemona. She is courted.
[Who
courts Desdemona? Othello? Iago? Both of them?]
Academic writing often focuses
on differences between the ideas of different researchers, or between your
own ideas and those of the researchers you are discussing. Too many passive
sentences can create confusion:
Research has been done to discredit this theory. [Who did
the research? You? Your professor? Another author?]
Some students use passive
sentences to hide holes in their research:
The telephone was invented in the nineteenth century. [I
couldn't find out who invented the telephone!]
Finally, passive sentences
often sound wordy and indirect. They can make the reader work unnecessarily
hard. And since they are usually longer than active sentences, passive
sentences take up precious room in your paper:
Since the
car was being driven by Michael at the time of the accident, the damages
should be paid for by him.
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