Name: Writing - Passive verbs with 'that' clauses - "It is thought that..."
Uploaded: 2015-04-09T22:23:46.000Z
Duration: 6 min 13 s
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Hey guys, I'm Alex. Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson on passive verbs with

"that" clauses. Okay, this is going to help you in your debates, your arguments, and your

So this is for advanced learners who are either going into university, writing essays in high

school, college, university -- any level of higher education. So here we have -- let's

And we can first notice a passive structure, so we have to understand what passive actually

means and what a "that" clause is. So we have for example, "It was claimed by Copernicus

that we lived in a heliocentric universe." "Heliocentric" means the sun is the center

of the universe and everything else goes around the sun.

So here we have "it was claimed". Now this is just a simple past passive sentence: "It

was claimed." By who? By Copernicus, and here we have the "that" clause: "that we lived".

Well, we do live, "in a heliocentric universe", okay?

So first you have the passive construction, when you are talking about making an argument,

or a claim, or a belief, a theory, and here we have the "that" clause, but what was claimed?

What was believed? What was said "that we lived in a heliocentric universe" back in Copernicus's

day. That's what he said. And we still do, and obviously do live in a heliocentric universe.

Let's look at couple of more examples, two more sentences, and then we'll look at some

academic verbs, common verbs that you can use in your academic essays. "It is thought that

Michael Jordan was the best basketball player ever." So here you see the "it" structure

again, you have "it", plus the verb "to be", plus the passive verb. "It is thought", by who?

Here, you don't have to say "by" because it is thought by many people. It's obvious. You

don't have to say by who in this situation. It is thought by many people. What is thought

by many people? "That Michael Jordan was the best basketball player ever", okay? Same construction.

Now let's look at the third example. "It is theorized that aliens built the pyramids."

Who knows? Well, I think we do know. This is probably wrong. However, it is theorized -- there

is a theory of conspiracy theorists. "It is theorized that aliens built the pyramids."

Okay? So now that we have the structure: "it", plus the verb "to be", plus the passive verb,

let's look at some academic verbs that you can use in these passive constructions and

"that" clauses. So we have -- and you can work on the pronunciation, too -- so if you're having

a debate with somebody; "allege", "assume", "believe", "claim", "fear", "feel", "hold",

"postulate", "predict", "say", "theorize", and "think".

Many of these verbs simply mean "it was said", "it was believed", to some degree. I know

most of you probably know verbs like "believe", "say", "think", perhaps you even know "claim",

but verbs such as "allege" or "postulate" or "hold", might be new to you. So in this

situation let me give you some quick explanations about each of these higher level verbs that

you can use, and that you can adapt and adopt for your own academic purposes.

We have "allege". "Allege" is similar to "assume", okay? So this is something that a person said

and they believed it, they assumed it to be true, okay? We can say "it was alleged by

Copernicus", "it was claimed by Copernicus", "It was assumed by Copernicus", as well.

Okay? "Claimed" -- if a person makes a "claim", they are saying that something is probably true, okay?

So again just like we have here, "It was claimed by Copernicus", this is what he said. I know

you understand "fear", "feel". "Hold" -- okay,  if you know the verb "hold", you can probably

imagine its use in an academic setting, or in a debate setting, in an argument setting.

If I say, "It is held by many people that Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of

all time.", they hold that belief to be true. They hold it close to them.

Sorry about that, guys. I touched the microphone. Now "postulate", similar to "theorize" in

this situation. They said a theory, okay? All right guys, that's it. That's all we have

to say about this. So if you'd like to test your understanding of these academic verbs,

which I hope you will use in your essays, in  universities, in colleges, even in

high school. They can make your work sound at that next level.

If you want to test your understanding of this, and this structure in particular, you

can check out the quiz on www.EngVid.com . Good luck and take care.