Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Use of Passive Voice in Writing

P

puma1552

Suspended
Original poster
Nov 20, 2008
5,559
1,947
"This experience has provided me intimate insight into not only Japanese society but also Japanese disposition, yielding me a rather unique perspective from which to approach my research interests once admitted to IR/PS"

Is this passive voice because of the "has provided"?

This is a sentence from my grad school SoP for a master's in international relations. My background is engineering, where we subconsciously used nothing but the passive voice. As a result, despite how many websites I read on passive voice, I can never be too sure if I'm using it or not.

If this IS passive voice, how would you rework it in active voice without losing the erudition it has? It seems like whenever I work around what seems to be unavoidable passive voice, the resultant active voice sounds far more trite and unintelligent.
 
mscriv

mscriv

macrumors 601
Aug 14, 2008
4,923
602
Dallas, Texas
puma1552 said:
"This experience has provided me intimate insight into not only Japanese society but also Japanese disposition, yielding me a rather unique perspective from which to approach my research interests once admitted to IR/PS"
Click to expand...

This experience gave intimate insight into Japanese society and disposition. As a result, I can better approach research interests after admission to IR/PS.

Passive voice can be tricky when writing in the first person. Now, I'm no grammarian and I can't guarantee that my reworking is the best solution. However, I think it's best to avoid being verbose as much as possible. If you can say what you want with less words than it is usually better to do so. Unless, your trying to up your word count, but teachers are usually adept at busting you on that. :D

Here's a link on passive voice that might be helpful, even though you say you've read many.
 
eawmp1

eawmp1

macrumors 601
Feb 19, 2008
4,158
91
FL
It's not passive.

Subject "experience"
Predicate "has provided" - the "has" confers tense, not passive voive
Object "me"

Passive: "I was provided by this experience an intimate insight into not only Japanese society but also Japanese disposition..."
 
P

puma1552

Suspended
Original poster
Nov 20, 2008
5,559
1,947
mscriv said:
This experience gave intimate insight into Japanese society and disposition. As a result, I can better approach research interests after admission to IR/PS.

Passive voice can be tricky when writing in the first person. Now, I'm no grammarian and I can't guarantee that my reworking is the best solution. However, I think it's best to avoid being verbose as much as possible. If you can say what you want with less words than it is usually better to do so. Unless, your trying to up your word count, but teachers are usually adept at busting you on that. :D

Here's a link on passive voice that might be helpful, even though you say you've read many.
Click to expand...

Awesome, I agree about being too verbose as well; there is no word limit but the school encourages us to limit it to 2-3 pages, which is difficult with the multitude of questions they ask. Mine is sitting at 3.25 pages or so, so I feel I can shorten key sentences to get her down under 3 pages.

eawmp1 said:
It's not passive.

Subject "experience"
Predicate "has provided" - the "has" confers tense, not passive voive
Object "me"

Passive: "I was provided by this experience an intimate insight into not only Japanese society but also Japanese disposition..."
Click to expand...

Oh man this makes me feel better. I had like five sentences kind of like this that I thought were passive but this makes me feel a lot better--what you wrote is DEFINITELY passive.

So now I just need to work on final shortening and tightening, hopefully I can have this done today! Thanks guys!
 
P

puma1552

Suspended
Original poster
Nov 20, 2008
5,559
1,947
yeah i never felt comfortable with it either, i ended up changing it
 
P

puma1552

Suspended
Original poster
Nov 20, 2008
5,559
1,947
iphone.aggie said:
Well, when I gave the draft of my thesis to my grad adviser, I was shocked over how many pages he just took and marked a BIG RED X over the whole page. You'll get there.
Click to expand...

w0rd

I currently have it being reviewed my one of my letter writers (who happens to be an Ivy grad) and I'm sure she will rip it apart. This school wants me to write four essays, one of which is an optional one for a fellowship. The other two required are final after painstaking revisions (upwards of 40 hours into revising one, ouch), and this SoP is coming to the very end now I finally feel. Once this is finalized, I will be done with the required stuff. I have the optional draft done, but not revised so that one needs a bit of work still. If I'm lucky I can send this app off in another week or two.

Then finish my other 3 :(

UCSD
Columbia
NYU
Syracuse
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom