Active and Passive Voice

Active and Passive Voice

What is Active Voice?

A sentence in the active voice is structured traditionally:

 subject + verb + object.

Example

• Beth stubbed her toe.

• In each of these sentences, the subject does the action of the verb, and the object of the sentence receives that action.

• Beth, the subject, does the stubbing. Her toe receives the stubbing (and hurts a lot).

What Is Passive Voice?

A sentence is in the passive voice when the word that is the recipient of the action is the subject of the sentence.

The opposite of the active voice is the passive voice.

object + verb + subject

Example

• The toe was stubbed by Beth.

• Now, the nouns receiving the actions are the subjects of these sentences. 

• Instead of thinking about Beth, now we’re focusing on her toe.

Passive Voice

• Note that in each sentence, there is a form of to be + a past participle.

• That’s a dead giveaway that the sentence is in passive voice.

• If the subject of a sentence is being acted upon by an outside force, the sentence is in passive voice.

When to Use Active Voice

• It’s bold. “Beth stubbed her toe” is more clear, direct, and interesting than “The toe was stubbed by Beth.” Get straight to the point and engage your readers with active voice.

• It’s precise. “Country music is sometimes hated” conveys less information than “People sometimes hate country music.” You could expand it to say “Country music is sometimes hated by people,” but that makes the sentence more clunky. Just use active voice.

• It’s succinct. Sentences in active voice are often shorter than their passive-voice counterparts. Cut the fluff and tighten your prose with active voice.

When to Use Passive Voice

• 1. When you don’t know who did the action.The plate didn’t fall on its own—it was dropped on the floor.

  But who dropped the plate? No one knows.

• 2. When the person who did the action isn’t important.In this experiment, the eggs were placed in vinegar overnight.

  The experiment with the eggs is the important bit; mentioning the person who did it would be distracting.

• 3. When you want your readers to focus on the object of the action.All the fruit in the pantry is covered in mold.

  The focus in this sentence is on the fruit, not the mold. (Although if you were standing in that pantry, your focus would probably be on the mold.)

How to change an active voice sentence to a passive voice sentence

How to change an active voice sentence to a passive voice sentence

• Make the object of the active sentence into the subject of the passive sentence.

• Use the verb “to be” in the same tense as the main verb of the active sentence.

• Use the past participle of the main verb of the active sentence.

Examples

Active Voice ------------------------------------------- Passive Voice

I eat an apple. ---------------------------- An apple is eaten by me.

He bought a car. ------------------------- A car was bought by him.