More on Verbs: Consistency and Voice

The Bottom Line: Be consistent!

Be Consistent with Tenses!

Stick with one verb tense (unless you have a good reason to switch)

INCONSISTENT: The waitress ran to the kitchen with the order in her hand, raced back to her customers with classes of water, and smiles calmly.

Be Consistent with Tenses!

CONSISTENT (CORRECTED): The waitress ran to the kitchen with the order in her hand, raced back to her customers with glasses of water, and smiled calmly.

OR CONSISTENT (CORRECTED): The waitress

runs to the kitchen with the order in her hand, races back to her customers with glasses of water, and smiles calmly.

Vocabulary

Past Participle: the past tense form of a verb that could be paired with the helping verbs have, has, or had Had wanted Have sung Has swum Had loved Have studied Etc.

The Present Perfect Tense

Present Perfect = Have/Has + Past Participle of the Verb

Use the present perfect to show an action that started in the past but is still going on in the present.

EXAMPLE: My father has driven a truck for five months.

The Past Perfect Tense

Past Perfect = Had + Past Participle of the Verb

Use the past perfect tense to show more than one event in the past—that is, when two or more things happened in the past but at different times.

EXAMPLE: He had washed the dishes by the time I came home.

Active and Passive Voices

Active Voice: When the subject in the sentence is actually doing the action. I painted the house. The people on the corner made a

donation to the emergency fund.

Active and Passive Voices

Passive Voice: When the subject in the sentence is having something done to it; when the subject receives the action of the verb. The house was painted by me. A donation to the emergency fund was

made by the people on the corner.

Active and Passive Voices

In general, you should avoid using the passive voice —it is not as strong, straightforward, and clear as the active voice.

The only time you should use the passive voice is when the doer of the action is unknown or unimportant.

Active and Passive Voices

Acceptable Usage of the Passive Voice: Our house was broken into last night.

(We don’t know who broke in.) A leather jacket was left behind in the

classroom. (We don’t know who left it.) My favorite team was beaten last night.

(We don’t know/don’t care who beat them.)

Active and Passive Voices

Also, avoid shifts in voice; if part of the sentence is in active voice, keep the whole sentence in active voice (and vice versa).

INCORRECT: I designed the decorations for the dance; they were put up by Chuck.

CORRECT: I designed the decorations for the dance; Chuck put them up.