In this post: when to switch to the active voice, how to vary sequencers, a fixed formula for the Overview, and nominalisation (the collection of …), with good sentences and corrections from my own process essays.
Process Diagrams · 3 parts
- 1. Question type and the passive
- 2. Sequencers and the Overview (you are here)
- 3. Rewrites, mistakes and practice
✦ In this post
4. Mixing active and passive: when to use the active
The passive is the core of a process diagram, but that does not mean every sentence has to be passive. Things that happen by themselves in nature (plants growing, water evaporating, eggs hatching) are not done “by” anyone, so they take the active voice; only steps carried out by people or machines take the passive. The problem is never “having both active and passive in one essay”; it is “writing a step in the active when it should be passive”.
✓ Good: In the first five stages, the plants and trees grow with the help from sunlight and carbon dioxide.
(Task 37) The plants grow by themselves, so the active “grow” is correct. Small fix: “with the help of”.
✗ Original: Next, by adding sand and water, the third step turns raw material into bricks by moulds or wire cutters.
→ Revised: Next, sand and water are added, and the mixture is shaped into bricks using either a mould or a wire cutter.
(Task 26) The subject has become “the third step”, but the one doing the “adding” is not the step; this is a dangling structure. Switching back to the passive, with the material itself as the subject, makes it clear.
✗ Original: Successfully going through grids and being placed on specific rollers, the raw materials are made.
→ Revised: The clay is then passed through a metal grid onto a roller.
(Task 26) On the diagram this step is simply the clay passing through a metal grid and onto a roller; no “raw materials are made”, and “successfully” is a meaning I added myself. Your description must stay true to the diagram.
Active verbs for natural cycles
Natural-cycle questions (plant growth, animal life cycles, the water cycle) also appear regularly in the Cambridge books. In these questions the subject is a living thing or a natural substance, and most of the verbs are intransitive, so they cannot be made passive anyway. Here is a table of common ones:
| Stage | Active verbs | Model sentence |
|---|---|---|
| Birth, beginning | hatch, emerge, germinate | The eggs hatch into larvae after two weeks. |
| Growth | grow, develop, mature | The young fish mature over a period of several months. |
| Movement | migrate, travel, flow | The adult salmon migrate back to the river. |
| Change | evaporate, condense, turn into | Water evaporates and later condenses into clouds. |
| End, starting again | die, return, begin again | The cycle then begins again. |
These are all model sentences. The ethanol question was a mixed type: plant growth is natural (active); harvesting, pre-treatment, processing and adding micro-organisms are man-made (passive); and cars, lorries and planes burning the ethanol and releasing carbon dioxide back into the air is active again. That essay got 8 for GRA, and a large part of the reason was that none of these switches between active and passive went wrong.
5. Sequencers: moving from one step to the next
CC in a process diagram relies heavily on linking words, but the worst habit is starting every sentence with “Then” or with “In the X stage”. Prepare three groups of words and rotate them:
| Position | Linkers | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Beginning | Initially, First, To begin with, In the first stage | Do not use “Initially” and “first” in the same sentence |
| Middle | Next, Then, Subsequently, Following this, After that, At the next stage | “Following this” is followed by a comma and a full clause |
| Combining | …, after which … / before being p.p. / once … have been p.p. | Two short steps can become one sentence |
| End | Finally, In the final stage, Lastly | After the last step you can add “completing the production of …” |
| Cycle | …, whereupon the cycle begins again / … and the process starts again | Only write this if the diagram really has an arrow back to the start |
Take the noodle essay as an example. Its second body paragraph has four sentences, and they contain three “stage” phrases: in the sixth stage, after the cooking and drying stage and in this stage. It reads like a list. The fix is not simply swapping “stage” for synonyms like “step” or “phase”, but linking the sentences through actions: once the discs are cooked and dried, they go into cups, then the flavourings are added, and finally the cups are labelled and sealed. Linked with “after which”, “then” and “finally”, the order is obvious, and the reader does not need constant reminders of which step they are on.
Another common problem is a linker that does not match the content. “Following this” means “immediately after the previous step”; if there is actually another step in between, the reader will think you have left one out. When you finish, look at the two steps on either side of each linker and check whether they really are next to each other on the diagram.
✓ Good: Finally, the labels are put on the outside-part of those cups, completing the production of instant noodles.
(Task 13) Ending with the participle “completing …” is very neat. But this step is labelling and sealing, and sealing is missing; “outside-part” is also not English. “The cups are labelled and sealed” is enough.
✗ Original: In the first three steps, clay is first collected by diggers under the ground …
→ Revised: In the first stage, clay is dug from the ground by a digger …
(Task 26) “In the first three steps” and “first” repeat each other, and “collect” is not quite the right verb: for earth, use “dig”.
6. The Overview: number of stages, start and end
The Overview is the easiest part of a process diagram, because it has a fixed formula: how many stages + where it starts + what it goes through + where it ends, plus “and then it starts again” for a cycle. All four of my Overviews followed this formula more or less, and none of them had major problems:
Formula
Overall, the process consists of / comprises [number] stages, beginning with the [noun] of …, moving through the [noun] of …, and culminating in the [noun] of …
✓ Good: Overall, the whole process comprises eight stages, beginning with the collection of raw materials, moving through the production of noodles, and culminating in the packaging of the final products.
(Task 13) The formula is applied in full.
✗ Original: … and culminating in the releasing of carbon dioxide, in which the new process begins.
→ Revised: … and ending with the release of carbon dioxide, whereupon the cycle begins again.
(Task 37) Nominalisation needs a real noun, “release”, not the gerund “releasing”; “in which” should be “whereupon” or “after which”.
7. Nominalisation: the collection of …
The blank in the Overview formula, beginning with the ___ of …, needs a noun. This is the most effective way to boost LR in a process diagram, and it is a table I specifically put together in my notes:
| Verb | Noun form | Common mistake |
|---|---|---|
| collect | the collection of | — |
| produce | the production of | — |
| prepare | the preparation of | — |
| deliver | the delivery of | the delivering of (Task 26) |
| release | the release of | the releasing of (Task 37) |
| package | the packaging of | — |
| sort | the sorting of | — |
| heat | the heating of | — |
| transport | the transportation of | — |
| distribute | the distribution of | — |
| inspect | the inspection of | — |
When a verb has its own noun (deliver → delivery, release → release, produce → production), always use that noun; only when there is none (sort, heat, clean) should you use the -ing form.
Nominalisation is not just for the Overview; it can also vary the sentences in the body. For example, The final stage is the packaging and delivery of the bricks. (model) uses a “stage = noun” sentence to end a paragraph, which is more varied than yet another passive sentence. Another common approach is The process begins with the collection of …, which breaks the Overview formula into single sentences and works naturally as the first sentence of a body paragraph.
Nominalisation makes writing sound more academic, but do not overdo it. A whole paragraph of “the … of …” reads stiffly. A sensible balance: always in the Overview, at most once in each body paragraph, and plain passive sentences everywhere else.
Should you fill in the gaps? Stay true to the diagram, but you can explain the purpose
My process-diagram notes contain the line “explain what happens as things move through the process (fill in the obvious where appropriate)”. What I mean is that if the diagram only says Crushing, you can write the blocks are crushed into small pieces, making “crushed into small pieces” explicit; if it says Washing, you can write the pieces are washed to remove dirt, adding a reasonable purpose. This kind of addition makes it easier for the reader to follow, and it stops your sentences from simply copying the labels.
But “explaining a purpose” and “adding facts of your own” are two different things. In the brick essay I wrote the raw materials are made, which is not on the diagram at all, so that addition was wrong. My own rule is: only add an obvious purpose or result; never add steps or objects that are not on the diagram. When in doubt, stick to the information on the diagram.
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✦ Target Your Future
Some days you practise for hours and the score still does not move. I hope these notes remind you that the setbacks are part of the road: every recording you replayed, every essay you rewrote and every sentence you finally dared to say is progress you have already made.
I wrote this down so the next person can take fewer detours. You do not have to follow my method exactly. Find a rhythm that works for you, rest when you need to, and come back for the next small step.
I hope what you take away is more than a number on a score report: a little more confidence in yourself, and the courage to step a bit closer to the world.
— Ting
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