“Be” verbs include be, am, are, is, been, being, was, and were. One way to spot passive verbs in your writing is to look for “be” verbs. Taking time during your editing process to identify passive sentences will help you become aware of how and when to use them.įirst, notice that an active sentence and a passive sentence each state the same idea, but they use a different word order: Passive voice is ok to use in academic writing when used appropriately and sparingly.
#How to check for passive voice in word mac how to
Learning how to identify passive voice in your writing will help you improve the clarity of your writing. Using longer clauses instead of shorter phrasesĪfter she had baked the bread, she cleaned the kitchen.Īfter baking the bread, she cleaned the kitchen. There were thirty-four people waiting for the mayor. It was exciting to go to the New Year celebrations. Over-use of “it” and “there” as meaningless subjects The Northern Lights gave Edmontonians a wonderful June 1st late night show.
in the evening on the first of June, the northern lights gave a wonderful show to residents. (for example phrases that begin with words like in, at, on, with.) The police caught the criminal and the court convicted him. The criminal was caught by the police and convicted by the court. Use of long expressions instead of individual words The crime wave cost people a lot of money. When she talked to him, she used a loud angry voice. Use of vague words instead of precise words In my opinion, I think that the study of Sociology is very fascinating. What makes the first version of each pair wordy?ĭespite the fact that she was not feeling well, she came to the conclusion that she would go to work anyway.ĭespite feeling unwell, she decided to go to work. Notice the difference between each of the following pairs of sentences. When revising your paper, take some time to edit specifically for wordiness. This resource will help you recognize language that can be made more concise in your writing.Ĭoncise writing expresses ideas without unnecessary wordiness and makes your writing easier to understand.