Active and Passive Voice

Voice

• Voice is the form of a verb that shows if the subject is forming an action.
• Only action verb shows voice. (Not linking verbs or helping verbs).
• There are two kinds of voice: Active and passive.

Active Voice

• A verb is active if the subject is actually performing the action.
  • • Examples–
    • The students conducted an experiment.
    • My sister called yesterday.
• Use the active voice whenever possible.

Passive Voice

• A verb is passive if its action is performed upon the subject.
• A passive ver is made from be plus the past participle of a transitive verb.
  • Examples–
    • An experiment was conducted by the students. (I made the above active sentence into a passive sentence.)
    • I was called by my sister yesterday. (Again, I turned the above sentence around–My sister called yesterday. The passive voice sounds awkward, no?)
    • The boys were told a story by their father. (Instead of the active voice–The boys’ father told them a story.)
    • A taste test was conducted by the students.  Here “a taste test” isn’t the subject doing the action. By the students–they are the ones doing the action, but the action is being thrust upon them in a backhanded way.

    Note: Whenever the words “is, was or were” is next to the action verb–or if you see the word “by”– this is a heads up that the voice is passive.

When To Use Passive Voice

• If you want to emphasize the receiver of the action rather than the performer of an action.
  • • Example–My dear Aunt Molli was killed by falling rock at the Grand Canyon. It’s a beloved relative who was killed, and that’s who the author wanted to emphasize–not the rock.
• Use passive voice to point out the receiver of an action when the performer is unknown, unimportant or not named in the sentence.
  • • Example–Carter Caverns were discovered twenty years before it was opened to the public. In this sentence we wanted to emphasize that the caverns were discovered way before they were opened to the public. It didn’t really matter who discovered them, not in this sentence. At least that’s not what the author wanted to emphasize.

Now let’s practice!