Refer to Mesmerized: How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery that Baffled All of France for a complete version of this text.

active voice: my father cut the tree.

passive voice: the tree was cut by my father.

active voice: people buy newspapers every day.

passive voice: newspapers are bought (by people) every day.

active voice: people have been using movies as political propaganda since world war ii.

passive voice: movies have been used as political propaganda since world war ii.

active voice: donna gave me my birthday present.

passive voice: i was given my birthday present (by donna). / my birthday present was given to me (by donna).

active voice: mom will leave the keys on the counter.

passive voice: the keys will be left (by mom) on the counter.

the words in parentheses are the agent of the passive voice and can be omitted when obvious, generic, or simply unnecessary.

can i see the painting?

i’m writing a memoir and i’ve been given the great suggestion of placing a ‘sub-narrative’ within some of the chapters – sort of, what was going on with me in the grand scheme of things.

i was wondering how to format this so that it is very obvious we are stepping out the of story.

firstly is a change in font from serif to sans workable? i also use dashes for a scene change. was thinking of using a different scene-changer too.

here’s a (shortened) example:

university – or what’s known as ‘uni’ in australia – were some of the best days of my life. where else do you get to potter around in a great location, have very little responsibility, learn lots of things, do lots of things and walk out four years later with a bonus – a degree!

with my university years i had immersed myself into community of intelligent ambitious people. generally everyone had a confidence about themselves. they knew where they were going in life and weren’t threatened by others.

—–

next normal paragraph continues here…

(sorry couldn’t show the fonts in this comment field)

too much?