english language arts questions

Question

why shouldn't you write the authors argument/purpose/perspective or rhetorical strategies or techniques in the passive voice?

why wouldn't the sentence below be appropriate for the rhetorical analysis required of this style essay (FRQ2):

Abraham Lincoln's concern for the country is evident.

Should you use the second person pronoun "you" in a rhetorical analysis essay? why or why not?

Same question but with first-person pronouns?

what are three different ways to organize your essay?

what problems can proximal evidence pose in a rhetorical essay?

Answer 1

The use of passive voice (like in this sentence) is generally considered to be weak writing because it removes the emphasis from the subject, often removing the subject itself.

Example: "Jacob answered Jen's question" (Active Voice) vs. "Jen's question was answered" (passive) The subject doing the action is removed and unknown.

Sometimes passive voice is unavoidable and can provide variety to your sentence structure, but active voice is nearly always a better choice.

Unless instructed otherwise, never use 2nd-person or first-person in a rhetorical analysis essay.

If I were you, I would organize my essay around either how different rhetorical devices contribute to a larger theme. There are other options but I would need more information as to the nature of your essay.

Feel free to message me with any questions or to schedule either an online or IRL tutoring session!

Answer 2

Let's make a deal: if you agree to follow the rule, I'll explain why it's not really a rule. Cool?

Ok, great.

The difference between active and passive voice is emphasis; active voice emphasizes the subject; e.g., "JOHN answered Jen's question," while passive voice emphasizes the object; e.g., "JEN'S question was answered." It's simplistic to say that one is better than the other. Teachers insist on students avoiding the passive voice probably because some students (not you!) intentionally or unintentionally try to weasel out of exploring topics by using it. For example:

"The US Constitution was widely accepted."

Wow, what a boring platitude that doesn't really tell me anything--that's basically just a safe way to fill a word requirement. But if you force yourself to avoid the passive voice, then you might write:

"White landowning men accepted the new Constitution except in Rhode Island, which didn't ratify it until more than a year into George Washington's first term as President."

Well *now* you're saying something! (and more words too!)

(and hey, if you don't share that sentiment and want to argue that women, poor people, enslaved people, and native people also accepted it, go ahead...just be prepared to back it up)

So follow the rule and avoid the passive voice, not because the active voice is somehow better, but because it's good training to make sure you're always clear about what's being done and who's doing it. Like my mom always says, you can break all the rules you want, but you have to know what they are first.

And one last point. The reason I suspect that Barbara couldn't find a problem with your Lincoln sentence is that it's not in the passive voice. It's just a subject (AL's concern), the verb to be, and then an adjective. However, to Jacob's point, because it's for AP Lang, you'll want to keep the focus as much on rhetorical strategy as possible. So maybe, "Lincoln's powerfully emotional language make his concern for the country evident," or something like that.

Answer 3

I agree that active voice is always stronger, but I don’t see any way to make the example sentence more active without using first person. This sounds to me like an excellent set-up for analysis of Lincoln’s rhetoric.

other than that, I’m more concerned with communicating ideas than with rules. I see you tagged your question with “test prep,” so I guess you may be more concerned with knowing the rules. But if you focus on knowing what you want to say and saying it clearly and forcefully, you’ll be a better writer no matter what your machine scores are.