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Exercise 2-1J: Active vs. Passive Voice

Step 1: With your group, highlight and use the comment function in Google docs to annotate the following sentences. As a group, you should decide if each sentence is active or passive.
In the following examples, indicate whether the sentence is written in active or passive voice. 
  1. The results indicate that wolves occasionally kill beavers. 
  2. The burners are inspected regularly by lab technicians.
  3. Removal of the coating was affected by the application of chemical cleaners.
  4. Smith et al. investigated the relationship between wind and plant growth.
Now, rewrite each sentence in the opposite voice. 
  1. The results indicate that wolves occasionally kill beavers. 
  2. The burners are inspected regularly by lab technicians.
  3. Removal of the coating was affected by the application of chemical cleaners.
  4. Smith et al. investigated the relationship between wind and plant growth.

 

Step 2: Next, find a paragraph from a sample article, or use this one from an article about wolves. For each sentence in the paragraph, indicate whether the sentence is in active or passive voice by highlighting active voice green, and passive voice orange.

As part of a broader wolf monitoring program, we captured wolves from packs within or near

the park during 2012±2015 using #7 EZ Grip foothold traps (Livestock Protection Company,

Alpine, Texas). We set 10±30 traps in each pack’s territory for approximately 2 weeks or until

we captured our target number of wolves. We checked traps at least once/day. We immobilized

captured wolves with 10 mg/kg ketamine and 2 mg/kg xylazine using a syringe pole.

Once immobilized, we fitted wolves with global positioning system (GPS) telemetry collars

(Lotek IridiumTrackM 1D or 2D, Lotek Wireless Inc, Newmarket, Ontario, Canada; Vectronic

Vertex Survey, Vectronic Aerospace, Berlin, Germany). Morphological measurements, tissue

samples, and blood were collected. Sex and age were also recorded. We reversed wolves with

0.15 mg/kg of yohimbine and monitored through recovery. GPS-collar fix intervals were set to

20 minutes, 4 hours, 6 hours or 12 hours, depending on the collar type, where the pack was

located, and whether there was > 1 collar in the pack at that time. (Gable, Windels, and Bruggink, 2016). 

 

BONUS Step 3:
a) Write as many sentences in the passive voice as you feel like on a topic of your group’s choice (for example, about the television or movies that you’ve been watching lately).
b) Then, write a reflection paragraph (just a few sentences). Did you find writing deliberatively with the passive voice difficult? Intuitive? What did you notice about your thought process?

 

For an editable Google doc of this exercise that you can download, click here.