Verb "to be" (Passive)


Many students will learn from their writing assignment prompts that the instructor is looking for an essay written without the verb "to be".  The reason for this elimination is because "to be" verbs constitute passive voice, and passive voice is not as formal as is required in academic writing.

Even though the passive voice is not always unacceptable, in academic writing, all usage of the verb "to be" should be worked out of the paper for active voice to appear and your grammatical score for your writing to go up.

See the images and links (beneath each of them) to learn more about writing in active voice by eliminating the use of the verb "to be".








Go to https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/centers/writing/seven-sins-of-writing/1 to see this handout in its entirety.















Go to http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2016/05/passive-and-active-voice.html to see this handout in its entirety.
Even though this handout was written by APA, it is not only for APA formatted papers.  Passive Voice is a Grammatical issue, not a Formatting issue. 











Go to https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/passive-voice/ to see this handout in its entirety.











Go to https://www.publicationcoach.com/how-to-eliminate-the-verb-to-be/ to see this handout in its entirety.













Go to https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/using-the-passive-voice/3247545.html to see this handout in its entirety.























Go to https://kathysteinemann.com/Musings/to-be/ to see this handout in its entirety.


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