Change Passive Voice to Active Voice When a sentence is written, it can either be written in active voice or passive voice. Active voice describes a sentence where the subject performs the action stated by the verb. For example: Tom changed the flat tire.Passive voice describes a sentence where the subject is acted upon by the verb. For example: The tire was changed by Tom. In most cases, writing sentences in passive voice is discouraged because it can obscure the subject of the sentence, and confuse the reader. Defining Passive Voice Every sentence contains, at minimum, a subject and an action. When a sentence is in active voice, the subject is doing the action and the subject typically comes before the action in the sentence. I swim. When a sentence is in passive voice, the subject is being acted on by the verb and the subject typically comes after the action. Swimming is something I do. Some sentences also contain objects - the thing being acted upon. Anna hits the ball. That same sentence in passive voice reads:
Learn English and listen to English with podcasts in English ► Level 1 For elementary and pre-intermediate students ► Level 2 For intermediate students ► Level 3 For upper intermediate students and above ► For teachers Lesson plans, teachers' information worksheets, how to find a podcast and much more! ► Pie plus Our monthly magazine with news, videos, information worksheets and our monthly competition. ► Extras Extra worksheet activities to support the podcasts ► Freebies Free sample worksheets for each of the three levels ► Travelogues Follow the pie team on their travels and learn English along the way Podcasts in English are not just listening activities for efl and esl students to improve their conversation. Many thanks to partnersinrhyme for the jingle on our podcasts and Philip Halling for the banner photo. Our partner sites: ► Need help with an urgent assignment?
Writing Challenges Ice, Water, Steam For this week’s writing challenge, take on the theme of H2O. What does it mean to be the same thing, in different forms? Hindsight is 20-20 What if you had the power to rewrite history? Countdown ‘Tis the season for suspense-building lists. Digging for Roots In this week’s Weekly Writing Challenge, tell us about what makes you, you. Overheard This week’s writing challenge revolves around my favorite inspiration: eavesdropping. Pie Food evokes all the senses: the scent of pastry baking, the sound of a fork clinking on a plate… This week, make our mouths water with stories about pie. Oh, The Irony This week’s challenge explores one of the oldest — and trickiest — literary devices. Find a Muse in the Masters Write a new piece using Nighthawks by Edward Hopper as your inspiration. The Butterfly Effect The idea that everything is connected becomes most interesting when applied to ourselves. Genre Blender The Unreliable Narrator Interview
Creating an Executive Summary Word includes a special tool that creates automatic summaries of your documents for you. This tool is called AutoSummarize, appropriately enough. The summary can be any length you specify, and you can save it to a new document, add it to the beginning of your document, or simply highlighted it in place. This feature allows you to quickly create a starting point for an executive summary. Notice that I said AutoSummarize creates a "starting point." This is because the summary is based on what Word can figure out about your document. To use the AutoSummarize feature, follow these steps: Load and display the document you want to summarize.Choose AutoSummarize from the Tools menu. Figure 1. In the Type of Summary area, specify which of the four summary types you want to create.In the Length of Summary area, indicate by using the Percent of Original drop-down list exactly how long you want the summary to be.Click on the OK button. Do More in Less Time! Comments for this tip: -Allen Thanks,-Ross
A Great Tool for Creating Stories Using Maps March 14, 2017Esri Story Maps is a web tool that enables you to combine the power of maps and narrative text to create engaging and inspiring stories to share with others. Besides maps, your stories can include places, locations, and geography. You can also embed a wide variety of multimedia materials to tell your stories. These include: videos, images, texts, shapes and many more. Esri Story Maps provides several story map designs to use for your stories. Story Map Journal: Create an in-depth narrative organized into sections presented in a scrolling side panel. Check out this page to view more story maps’ design options. Courtesy of Edshelf.
English Language Centre Study Zone About the Study Zone The Study Zone is for students of the English Language Centre (ELC) at the University of Victoria. ELC teachers create the English language lessons and practice exercises. The site is designed for our adult English language learners, but all are welcome to read the lessons and use the exercises. News and Feedback The comments on the Study Zone blog have been great! Who visits Study Zone? This map shows the visitors to this page only. All levels: Grammar Index What do I do? First, choose your level. Study Zone is made up of levels. Where am I now? The menu at the top of each page tells you where you are.
Best Creative Writing Exercises (PHOTOS) Writers block, oh, writers block ...please go away! Even though it's the bane of all writers' existence, there are a bevy of ways to bypass the darn thing. From writing prompts to writing exercises, there are thousands of ways to get the creative juices flowing. Here are just a few of our favorites. Loading Slideshow 7x7x7x7Grab the 7th book from your bookshelf. Best Creative Writing Exercises 1 of 10 Hide Thumbnails Writing | SMART teaching strategies Students need to understand the differences between spoken and written language, and they should write with a meaningful purpose and audience in mind. Teachers need to model and jointly construct writing before expecting students to independently produce written texts. During this modelling and joint construction, explicit teaching is required in relation to the features of language, for example, sentence structure, text structure, correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. Writing can be marked using an analytic rubric which provides diagnostic information to teachers about students’ achievements in writing. The criteria in the rubric should provide a comprehensive picture of each student’s skills.
Creative Writing Prompts Write a scene that includes a character speaking a different language, speaking in a thick accent, or otherwise speaking in a way that is unintelligibe to the other characters. (Note: You don't necessarily need to know the language the character is speaking—be creative with it!) Describe a character's reaction to something without explaining what it is. See if your fellow prompt responders can guess what it is. Write a story or a scene about one character playing a prank on another. Writing Prompt: Write a story that involves confusion over homonyms (words that have the same spelling but different meanings) or homophones (words that sound the same but are spelled differently). For World Storytelling Day, share the best story you've ever heard or told by word of mouth, or have a fictional character recount their favorite story. You're making your way down a cobbled street when a stocky, red-bearded man beckons you into an alley. Consider your handwriting, or a character's handwriting.
The Ultimate Guide to Writing Better Than You Normally Do. Writing is a muscle. Smaller than a hamstring and slightly bigger than a bicep, and it needs to be exercised to get stronger. Think of your words as reps, your paragraphs as sets, your pages as daily workouts. Think of your laptop as a machine like the one at the gym where you open and close your inner thighs in front of everyone, exposing both your insecurities and your genitals. Procrastination is an alluring siren taunting you to google the country where Balki from Perfect Strangers was from, and to arrange sticky notes on your dog in the shape of hilarious dog shorts. The blank white page. Mark Twain once said, “Show, don’t tell.” Finding a really good muse these days isn’t easy, so plan on going through quite a few before landing on a winner. There are two things more difficult than writing. It’s so easy to hide in your little bubble, typing your little words with your little fingers on your little laptop from the comfort of your tiny chair in your miniature little house.