Download Reviewing Parallelism

Review Homework #3: Passive Voice, Nominalizations, Expletives,
Parallelism
Use the Harris grammar text for more information about these topics.
Understanding Passive Voice
While weak verbs such as to be (is, are, was, were, have/has/had, been), to have, or to do serve essential
language roles as auxiliary or “helping” verbs, when overused, they steal power and impact from your writing.
Very often a verb with more impact is located in another word in the sentence along with the “to be” verb.
There were firework explosions in the dark sky. (weak)
Fireworks exploded in the dark sky. (strong)
The dark sky exploded in fireworks. (strong, but literary)
Understanding Nominalizations
You can fix a weak verb by converting a noun (often one ending in –ion – referred to as a “shun” word or a
nominalization) to be the verb. Also note that since passive voice constructions are signaled by using “to be”
verbs or nominalizations, to modify the sentence, you may need to make up a subject since that is often absence
with passive voice constructions. See the previous example with explosion changed to exploded.
The active voice is easier to understand then the passive because the active voice explains who is doing the
action.
Not as clear: The decision that was reached by the committee was to postpone the vote.
Active: The committee decided to postpone the vote.
Understanding Expletives
EXPLETIVES are variations of there is and it is, (i.e., there is, there are, there were, etc… it is, is was, etc.).
These passive voice constructions blunt your meaning, while hogging both the subject and verb in a sentence,
deferring the action to a dependent clause. These constructions throw away not only your verb potential, but
your subject, too.
Expletive: There were firework explosions in the dark sky. (weak)
Expletive: It’s cold out here.
Therefore, they ought to be rewritten in technical writing to better convey the idea. When you rewrite an
expletive, be careful not to use another passive voice construction. Therefore, sometimes you have to make up a
subject.
Expletive: There is an excellent old movie on TV tonight.
Clearer: Tonight, we’ll watch an excellent old movie on TV.
Reviewing Parallelism
Parallel structure is the use of the same grammatical form or structure for equal ideas in a list or comparison.
The balance of equal elements in a sequence helps show the relationship between ideas.
The instructor carefully explained how to start the engine and how to shift gears.
Getting the model airplane off the ground was even harder than building it from a kit.
Nonparallel structure occurs when like items are not in the same grammatical form or structure.
[Faulty] Many companies are reducing their labor force as well as eliminate some employee benefits.
[Corrected] Many companies are reducing their labor force as well as eliminating some employee benefits.
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