Passive Voice

What is passive voice?

The passive voice is used to emphasize a product, or a work, or an action. What matters to us is the action itself, and not so much who performed it. E.g.

Active voice: Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa.

Passive voice: The Mona Lisa was painted by Da Vinci.

How is the passive voice formed?

There are three important conditions that have to be met for a sentence to be in the passive voice:

1. You "should" always include the verb be.

2. The main verb must always be in the past participle.

3. The verbs that can be used in the passive voice are transitive, that is, they are verbs that affect an object or a subject.

EXAMPLES

Active voice, intransitive verb: She ran in the park yesterday.

This sentence cannot be changed to passive voice.

Active voice, transitive verb:

People speak Spanish in Mexico.

This sentence can be changed to passive voice: Spanish is spoken in Mexico.

How to change from active voice to passive voice?

Follow these steps:

Identify the grammatical tense of the original sentence; that will be the grammatical tense of the verb be:

This toy WAS MADE in China. (Simple past)

This toy WAS MADE in China (Simple past passive)

They bake bread every day (Simple present)

Bread IS BAKED every day (Simple present passive)

How to change from active voice to passive voice?

Don Quixote was written by Cervantes.

Check that the main verb is transitive; That is, observe that said verb affects an object or a subject:

Cervantes wrote Don Quixote. (What did he write?)

Don Quixote was written by Cervantes.

Can you mention the author?

Passive voice emphasizes the action.

When we mention the subject, it is called agent.

The Nintendo Switch was launched in 2017. (Without agent)

The Nintendo Switch was launched in 2107 by Nintendo.

We use by to mention the agent.

Passive voice can be used in any grammatical tense

Ranma 2/1 was created by Rumiko Takahashi.

English is spoken in many countries.

A new hotel is going to be built next year.

The news has been published on the internet.

MORE EXAMPLES

Pizza is eaten in many countries in the world.

How are books made?

English is taught at UIS

Feedback will be given to students by the teacher.

Some questions were asked by the students.

A hero is always chosen.

Why do we use the passive voice? There are several reasons. Here are four of them.

Reason #1:
The object of the verb is more important.

(Passive Voice): A body was found in the park.

(Active voice): The police found a body in the park.

Reason #2: We don't know who the actor is.

(Passive voice): John F. Kennedy was killed in 1963.

(Active voice): Someone killed John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Name three things that.............................. (use) by artists.

Name three things that cannot .............................. (do) alone.

​Name three books that .............................. (make) into films.

Name three things that .............................. (produce) in your country.

Passive voice

• Active Voice: Students use laptops for classes.

• Passive Voice: Laptops are used for classes.

​

​

Commonly used in formal writing, scientific reports, and situations where the object is more important than the performer.

​Use

​Purpose

Passive voice

We use the passive voice to shift the focus from the subject to the action or the object of the sentence.

Listen and decide whether the sentences are:

Multiple Choice

Listen and check if it is Active or Passive.

• Active

• Passive

Multiple Choice

Listen and check if it is Active or Passive.

• Active

• Passive

Multiple Choice

Listen and check if it is Active or Passive.

• Active

• Passive

Multiple Choice

Listen and check if it is Active or Passive.

• Active

• Passive

Multiple Choice

Listen and check if it is Active or Passive.

• Active

• Passive

Multiple Choice

Listen and check if it is Active or Passive.

• Active

• Passive

Structure

Object + verb TO BE + Past participle form + Complement

Read the Active voice sentences and turn them into Passive voice.

Open Ended

01. People celebrate Christmas in December.

Open Ended

02. In Peru, people do not celebrate Thanksgiving day.

Open Ended

03. Do peruvian stores import cars?

Open Ended

04. Congressmen propose and approve the laws.

Open Ended

05. Do workers mine gold in Toquepala?

Fill in the Blank

She writes a letter.

Fill in the Blank

They are building a house.

Fill in the Blank

He has eaten lunch.

Fill in the Blank

They visited Paris last summer.

Fill in the Blank

He will finish the project soon.

Fill in the Blank

She can solve the problem.

Fill in the Blank

They should have finished the project early.

Fill in the Blank

He could have solved the problem.

Fill in the Blank

He has finished his homework.

Fill in the Blank

They fixed the broken window.

Fill in the Blank

She will send the package soon.

Fill in the Blank

She teaches English.

Fill in the Blank

The team will win the match.

Fill in the Blank

He has written the report.

Passive forms without be

1 Be is often omitted in newspaper headlines.

England is beaten at football

Hundreds are made homeless by flood

Passive forms without be

2 In relative clauses using passive constructions, the relative pronoun and verb to be can be omitted. This is known as a 'reduced relative clause'.

The people (who were) chosen to appear on the show

The people chosen to appear on the show)
The best play (which has ever been) written (the best play ever written)

Passive forms without be

3 Passives are often used as adjectives at the beginning of a sentence. This is a fairly formal usage, and is more common in writing.

Locked away in his prison cell room, he gradually fell into despair.

Released in two days time, The South is probably Manuel Garcia's most ambitious film so far.

When should I avoid passive voice?

Passive sentences can get you into trouble in academic writing because they can be vague about who is responsible for the action:

Both Othello and Iago desire Desdemona. She is courted.
[Who courts Desdemona? Othello? Iago? Both of them?]

Academic writing often focuses on differences between the ideas of different researchers, or between your own ideas and those of the researchers you are discussing. Too many passive sentences can create confusion:

Research has been done to discredit this theory.
[Who did the research? You? Your professor? Another author?]

When should I avoid passive voice?

Some students use passive sentences to hide holes in their research:

The telephone was invented in the nineteenth century.

[I couldn’t find out who invented the telephone!]

Finally, passive sentences often sound wordy and indirect.

They can make the reader work unnecessarily hard. And since they are usually longer than active sentences, passive sentences take up precious room in your paper:

Since the car was being driven by Michael at the time of the accident, the damages should be paid for by him