![]() To revise the above, all I did was look for the two buried things (simulations and zones) in the original version that could actually do something, and I made the sentence clearly about these two nouns by placing them in front of active verbs. Two model simulations (Figures 1 and 2) illustrate how zones of fracture concentration influence groundwater flow. But the reader’s task gets much easier in the revised version below: As often happens, the passive voice here has smothered potential verbs and kicked off a runaway train of prepositions. ![]() The sentence is becoming a burden for the reader, and probably for the writer too. Groundwater flow is influenced by zones of fracture concentration, as can be recognized by the two model simulations (see Figures 1 and 2), by which one can see. So why all the fuss? Because passive constructions can produce grammatically tangled sentences such as this: The passive choice slightly emphasizes “the rate of evaporation,” while the active choice emphasizes “the size of an opening.” Simple.
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