We studied the active voice; the passive voice was also taught.

This week's lecture challenged a few of us, but we chipped away at it until we got it right.

I noted (with pleasure) that many of you are now casually evaluating the quality of leads. Knowledge of the active voice's importance will similarly change the way you read news stories. Inappropriately passive sentence will now jump out at you as you read the papers and, I hope, as you write your own stories.

Read through these guides to polish up on the initial lecture, or to catch up on what you missed.

The Active Voice at Purdue's excellent Online Writing Lab.

The Guide to Grammar & Writing focuses more on the Passive Voice, and features examples of its appropriate use.

Towson University digs deeper into the mechanics and provides a lot of examples.

Finally, take this Passive-to-Active quiz, and its Active-to-Passive counterpart, at About.com.