Active and passive voice examples

Pre-Class material • Introduction (3 min) • Just enough grammar (optional) (10 min) • Words (10 min) • Active voice (15 min) • Clear sentences (10 min) • Short sentences (20 min) • Lists and tables (15 min) • Paragraphs (10 min) • Audience (10 min) • Documents (10 min) • Punctuation (optional) (5 min) • Markdown (variable) • Summary (1 min) Estimated Time: 15 minutes The vast majority of sentences in technical writing should be in active voice. This unit teaches you how to do the following: • Distinguish passive voice from active voice. • Convert passive voice to active voice because active voice is usually clearer. First, watch this video, just to get the ball rolling Distinguish active voice from passive voice in simple sentences In an active voice sentence, an actor acts on a target. That is, an active voice sentence follows this formula: Active Voice Sentence = actor + verb + target A passive voice sentence reverses the formula. That is, a passive voice sentence typically follows the following formula: Passive Voice Sentence = target + verb + actor Active voice example For example, here’s a short, active voice sentence: The cat sat on the mat. • actor: The cat • verb: sat • target: the mat Passive voice examples By contrast, here's that same sentence in passive voice: The mat was sat on by the cat. • target: The mat • passive verb: was sat • actor: the cat Some passive voice sentences omit an actor. For example: The mat was sat on. • actor: unknown • passive verb: was ...

I have heard countless times from people who are getting marked off (whether it’s by a teacher or a grammar checker) for writing too passively, but they don’t know how to fix it. If this applies to you, then this guide is really going to help. In this post, we’ll go through what passive voice is, how to recognize it, and ways to fix it to improve your writing. We’ll also talk about when to ignore that wavy line and just let the passive voice roll. After all, it isn’t always wrong to use it. Let’s get started. Contents: • • • • • • • What Is Even if you really aren’t sure what passive voice is, you probably have an idea about what a passive person is like (or, worse, a passive-aggressive person). There is a reason that writing uses the same word: They are very similar. What do you know about the word passive in general? You may think of someone that just lets things go by them without reacting. Or perhaps you think about a person who never comes out and says what they really feel. Sentences can do this too. In passive voice sentences, the main actor in the sentence doesn’t really do anything. It lets the action do all the work. It’s, well, passive. Let’s talk about this in technical terms: • Passive voice occurs when the subject of a sentence is acted upon instead of acting itself. We’ll cover more examples later, but just in case you need to see one to understand, let’s start with an easy one: • The ball was kicked. Notice that there is a ball at the center of the action i...

What to Know When a sentence is in the active voice, the subject of the sentence is the one doing the action expressed by the verb. In the passive voice, the subject is the person or thing acted on or affected by the verb's action. The passive voice is typically formed with a form of the verb be—such as is, was, or has been—and the past participle of the verb, as in "The ball was thrown by Jerry." Although sometimes criticized for being evasive, the passive voice can be useful when someone wants to emphasize an action that has taken place or when the agent of an action is unknown, as is often the case in news coverage. Mistakes were made. In English class, we are taught the difference between active and passive voice. The The Active voice: Jerry knocked over the lamp. Passive voice: The lamp was knocked over by Jerry. Both sentences describe the same action taking place—Jerry making contact with a lamp and causing it to fall over—with the first sentence making Jerry the subject and the second making the lamp the subject. The passive voice is often distinguished by its use of a linking verb form (e.g., was, had been) followed by another verb in its past participle form (e.g., "I have been given an opportunity"). Usefulness of Passive Voice Passive voice often gets criticized as a weak and evasive form of expression. But it is useful for those instances when you want to emphasize the fact of an action having taken place rather than who performed the action. It is also helpfu...

Activity: Label the Following Sentences Active and Passive Voice • Anna made the chocolate cake. • The chocolate cake was made by Anna. • The tour package has been advertised by the travel agent. • The travel agent has advertised the tour package. • The picture will be colored by evening by my brother. • My brother will color the picture by evening. • The pencil on the floor had been broken by him. • He had broken the pencil on the floor. Here are the answers!!! Label the Following Sentences as • Anna made the chocolate cake. ACTIVE VOICE • The chocolate cake was made by Anna. PASSIVE VOICE • The tour package has been advertised by the travel agent. PASSIVE VOICE • The travel agent has advertised the tour package. ACTIVE VOICE • The picture will be colored by evening by my brother. PASSIVE VOICE • My brother will color the picture by evening. ACTIVE VOICE • The pencil on the floor had been broken by him. PASSIVE VOICE • He had broken the pencil on the floor. ACTIVE VOICE Using Active and Passive Voice What is a Voice? The = There are two types of voice, namely: • Active voice • Passive voice Active voice First, let’s discuss the active voice When the subject of the sentence (denoted by the verb) is the doer of the action, performer, or the cause of the action, it is said to be in an active voice. Example: John threw the basketball before the buzzer. John shot the basketball from the free-throw line. John scored five points. Passive Voice When the subject (denoted by the ve...

Sentences in the passive voice contain a conjugated form of the verb to be (is, was, has been, will be, etc.) and the past participle form of a verb. Past participle refers to an action that was started and completed in the past. These verbs typically end in -ed, -d, -en, or -t. Passive voice sentences often contain a preposition or prepositional phrase, like by. Active vs. passive voice Active voice helps writers present their information clearly and concisely. Passive voice emphasizes the action or the object within a sentence, limiting the importance of the subject. Active vs. passive voice examples Below are two lists of example sentences written in both the active and passive voice. The following are examples of active voice sentences: • She delivered the letters yesterday. • The teacher assigned a book report. • The company will hire at least two new employees. • The salesman helped the confused customer at the store. • Hundreds of tourists visit the museum each year. Below are examples of sentences written with a passive voice: • The letters were delivered by her yesterday. • A book report was assigned. • At least two new employees will be hired by the company. • The confused customer was helped at the store. • The museum is visited each year by hundreds of tourists. Active and passive voice rules General rules for active and passive voice include the following: • The placement of the subject, verb, and object determines if a sentence is active or passive. • Active ...

Table of Contents • • • Active Voice In the verb, which is one of the most important grammatical topics in English, the roof appears in two different forms as the active voice and the Benjamin greeted his friend Alice, whom he had not seen for years, at the airport. Alice was greeted at the airport by her friend Benjamin, whom she had not met for years. When we take a look at these two sentence examples, we see that both sentences have a different sequence and meaning from each other. Although what is described in the two sentences is that Alice is waiting at the airport by Benjamin, the two sentences are told from completely different perspectives. At first glance, you may not have understood what is different, what is different is the subjects. The subject in the first sentence is Benjamin, while the subject in the second sentence is Alice. While Active Voice is used in the first sentence, Passive Voice is used in the second sentence. Passive Voice The roof of the verb, which is one of the most common mistakes in English, is a grammar subject consisting of two sub-titles, the passive voice, and the • I accidentally broke my mom’s favorite vase. (The person who broke the vase can be understood when the question “who?” is asked to the verb.) • My mom’s favorite vase was accidentally broken by me. (Here, when you ask the verb “who?” you will not get an answer. This sentence is a passive voice sentence.) Here are Active and Passive Voice Examples and Answers Tense Active Pas...

Chances are you got very cozy with grammar during your high school world language class. Your teacher probably tried drilling the imperfect tense, subject pronouns, subjunctive mood, and more into your brain as you struggled to understand not only the grammar but use it in a different language. Today, we’re going over passive and active voice. Using passive and active voice appropriately makes you Let’s get into how passive and active voice differs and when you should use which. Passive voice The voice of a sentence describes whether the sentence’s subject is performing or receiving the verb’s action. If the subject is performing the action, the sentence is in the active voice. If the subject is receiving the action, the sentence is in passive voice. Here’s an example of this with the subject underlined: Subject performing the action (active voice): The dogchased me. Subject receiving the action (passive voice): I was chased bythe dog. It’s the dog that’s doing the chasing, so our canine is the subject of the sentence. You can What chased me? The dog. How to form passive voice You form passive voice with a conjugated form of the verb “to be” plus a past participle. It’s sometimes followed by the preposition “by” to clarify who or what did the action. This sounds more complicated than it actually is. Let’s look at some examples to break down these elements. Passive voice examples: • All the Halloween candywaseatenbymy sister.(To be + past participle + preposition) • Mistake...