Sentences can be in the active voice (e.g., “He made the breakfast”) or the passive voice (e.g., “The breakfast was made by him”).
In the active voice, the grammatical subject of the sentence is the “doer” of the action described by the verb (“He made…”), but in the passive voice, the subject is the “recipient” of this action (“The breakfast was made…”).
Published on
October 11, 2024
by
Tom Challenger, BA.
Revised on
October 29, 2024.
Sentences can be in the passive voice (e.g., “The window was cleaned”) or the active voice (e.g., “He cleaned the window”). In the active voice, the “doer” of the action described by the verb is the grammatical subject of the sentence (“He cleaned…”), but in the passive voice, the subject is the “recipient” of this action (“The window was cleaned…”).
Choosing the passive voice allows us to make the sentence or clause “about” the recipient rather than the doer (or “agent”).
You construct the passive by using a form of the auxiliary verbbe (e.g., “was”) and the past participle of the main verb (e.g., “cleaned”). If you want to mention the agent in the passive voice, it comes after the prepositionby (e.g., “…was cleaned by him”).
Either … or is a correlative conjunction that is used to present two options or say that one of two things is true (e.g., “I’d like either ramen or sushi”).
Correlative conjunctions are pairs of words that are used to show the relationship between two words, phrases, or clauses. Others include neither … nor and not only … but also.
Neither … nor is a correlative conjunction that is used to indicate that two things are not true (e.g., “The candidate appeared neither prepared nor interested”).
Correlative conjunctions are pairs of words that are used to show the relationship between two grammatically equal parts of a sentence. Others include either … or and not only … but also.
Not only … but also is a correlative conjunction—a pair of words that is used to show the relationship between two grammatically equal parts of a sentence (e.g., “The company let down not only its shareholders but also its employees”).
You can use not only … but also when you want to emphasize that in addition to something already known, assumed, or expected (the “not only” phrase), there is something else (the “but also” phrase) that makes the statement more surprising, interesting, terrible, etc.
As the name suggests, compound-complex sentences incorporate elements of both a compound sentence and a complex sentence, two of the other sentence structures in English.
A compound sentence consists of two independent clauses (i.e., two simple sentences) joined by a comma and coordinating conjunction or a semicolon (e.g., “I went to the store, and Marcus cooked dinner”).
Transition words and phrases are used to connect ideas in your writing and help readers understand your arguments. Also called connecting words, linking words, or transitional words, these words describe the relationship between phrases, sentences, or paragraphs.
Understanding and using transition words effectively is necessary to produce clear and cohesive writing. Using a paraphraser like QuillBot’s can help you integrate transition words into your writing.