Tutor profile: Jenny W.

What is the difference between using active voice and passive voice in a sentence, and why does it matter?

Every sentence needs a subject and a verb. The subject has to do something. Sometimes we make our writing weaker by using passive voice. Here's an example. Passive voice: The food had been cooked by a famous chef. Active voice: The chef cooked the food for our celebration. Which sentence do you think does a better job of telling a story?

Name three significant events around 1500 AD that changed the Catholic Church forever.

First, an astronomer and scientist named Nicolaus Copernicus presented them with the theory that the earth orbited the sun instead of the other way around. This scientific theory changed the religious belief that the earth and, therefore, man was the center of the universe. Second, King Henry the VIII of England decided he wanted a divorce from his first wife. Only the Pope, the leader of the Catholic Church, could give him this. He was able through his political power to break from Rome and establish his church, which became the Church of England. Third, men began to translate the Bible into the language of ordinary people. Before that, the Bible was only available in Latin, and only church clergy could read it. When men like Tyndale, Luther, and Wycliffe translated the Bible so those who were not leaders of the church could read it, people could begin to question the way the Catholic Church taught the Bible. The Catholic Church killed Tyndale for it, but men continued to translate the Bible so anyone who knew how to read it could.

If you wanted to choose six authors for a home library that included a diverse group of writers, who would you choose?

I would choose two of the most famous English authors, one male, and one female. I would choose two American authors, one who published before 1970 and one contemporary author. I would choose two authors whose nationality was not from the United States or England. I would make sure to include at least two people of color. My library would include Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, Zora Neale Hurston, Isabelle Allende, Kazuo Ishiguro, and yes, Stephen King.