1. The voice of the verb is distinct from its tense. Don't confuse the passive voice with the past tense. (Sentence 2 happens to be in the past tense, but 3 is not; both 2 and 3 are in the passive ...

A MEMBER of Jose Carrillo’s Forum who goes by the user name Baklis asked me this tough question recently: “How does the perfect tense in the passive voice differ from the perfect tense in the active ...

If you’ve ever had any writing training, either at school or on the job, you’ve probably been warned off the passive voice. Your high school English teacher, all the business writing books, and scores ...

perfect j’ai été, tu as été, il a été, nous avons été, vous avez été, ils ont été imperfect j’étais, tu étais, il était, nous étions, vous étiez, ils étaient near future je vais être, tu vas être, ...

There are now many grammar-checking programs online; you can feed them a page of prose and they will return you a list of errors. No writer on Earth will ever use such a program, for it will signal ...

Of all the technical advice I offer writers, none is more controversial than encouragement to use the passive voice. Most writers prefer the active, and so do I. But that preference has been distorted ...