What is active and passive voice

The sentence may recount the same facts, or it may not. One very significant difference is that in the active voice you must identify the Agent: the person (or other entity) who performs the action, whereas in the passive you are free to omit the Agent. Active ok John stole my book. ∗ Stole my book. Passive ok My book was stolen by John. ok My book was stolen. In either case, the passive voice is employed to focus on the Patient of the action—the person or thing which 'suffered' it—rather than on Agent who or which performed it. There are several reasons you might want to do this: • Because you don’t know or don’t care who performed the action • Because what is important is the action itself rather than who performed it • Because what is important is the result of the action rather than who performed it • Because you want your readers to think of the action as 'impersonal' The last reason became particularly important in the 19th century, when scientific writers—or writers who wanted to be thought of as adopting a 'scientific' attitude—were particularly careful to banish any suggestion that the writer's personality or attitudes had any influence on what was reported. The passive voice remains to this day something of a fetish in the sciences, particularly in the 'soft' sciences, where there is still substantial anxiety about the scientific status and value of the work done. ∗ marks an utterance as ungrammatical. I would like to invite us to consider what would happen if th...

Voices Phrases Clauses • The grammatical property of • Types of Voice: • Active Voice • Passive Voice • Active Voice: When the doer or actor is the subject of a • “The boy performed a song.”(with an object, a song). • “I’m watching a movie,” says the speaker (with an object, a film). • “Vivian sings well.” (without an object). • Passive Voice: • The subject of a passive-voice statement is the action’s recipient. • The past participle form of a passive-voice verb is preceded by the auxiliary verb be. • “Angel will perform a well-known piano tune tomorrow night.” • “Thousands of individuals have already read his latest book.” • “It’s a kid who’s making the jewelry.” General Rules of Voice Change: • When in the passive voice, the object of the verb in the active voice becomes the subject of the verb. • In the active voice, the verb’s subject becomes the object in the passive voice. • The preposition “by” is usually used before it. • In the passive voice, the primary verb is converted to the past participle form and is preceded by the correct form of the verb ‘to be.’ • There are some verbs with the objects. In such cases, either of the objects can be changed into the subject, and the other is retained as an object. This object is called Retained object. • “The race was won by a middle school track and field star.” (active voice). • “The youngsters are outside playing,” says the (passive voice). • “It’s being played outside by the youngsters.” (active voice) • When the receive...

Table of Contents • • • • • • • • People love to tell others what to do with their voice: “ Lower your voice,” or “ Save your voice.” And one suggestion that causes a lot of confusion is: “ When faced with active voice vs. passive voice in your writing, u se your active voice when possible.” My active voice? Not my passive voice? I thought I only had one voice… In writing, there are two grammatical voices—active voice and passive voice. And you may have been warned by your well-meaning English teacher to avoid passive voice like the plague. But both voices have a right to be heard. However, one will definitely trump the other in helping you become more adept at business writing. Active Voice vs. Passive Voice If you’ve used Grammarly or Microsoft Word to edit your documents, you’ve probably been chastised on multiple occasions to use less passive voice. MS Word will even underline the sentence in squiggly red ( the scary color editors use to invoke fear in a writer). If you don’t have a proper understanding of what active voice and passive voice mean, you may have clicked “Dismiss” and ignored it. Both are grammatically correct—it’s not a mortal sin to use passive voice. But the What is Active Voice? Active voice is when the subject of a sentence performs the verb’s action. In other words, it tells what a person or thing does. The sentence is direct, strong, and easy to read. For example: • Horses love oats. • The police chased the robber. • Our business strategy expanded ...

Level: beginner Transitive verbs have both active and passive forms: Active Passive The hunter killed the lion. The lion was killed by the hunter. Someone has cleaned the windows. The windows have been cleaned. Passive forms are made up of the verb be with a past participle: Subject be Past participle Adverbial English is spoken all over the world. The windows have been cleaned. Lunch was being served. The work will be finished soon. They might have been invited to the party. If we want to show the person or thing doing the action, we use by: She was attacked by a dangerous dog. The money was stolen by her husband. Active and passive voice 1 Active and passive voice 2 Active and passive voice 3 Level: intermediate The passive infinitive is made up of to be with a past participle: The doors are going to be locked at ten o'clock. You shouldn't have done that. You ought to be punished. We sometimes use the verb get with a past participle to form the passive: Be careful with that glass. It might get broken. Peter got hurt in a crash. We can use the indirect object as the subject of a passive verb: Active Passive I gave him a book for his birthday. He was given a book for his birthday. Someone sent her a cheque for a thousand euros. She was sent a cheque for a thousand euros. We can use phrasal verbs in the passive: Active Passive They called off the meeting. The meeting was called off. His grandmother looked after him. He was looked after by his grandmother. They will send him...

Though fun, writing can also get pretty darn confusing, especially when you’re trying to figure out whether to use the active or passive voice. What is the difference between active and passive voice? When and how should you use them? In this complete active voice vs passive voice guide, we'll go over how each voice works in English grammar, when to use the two voices, and how to change a sentence from passive to active (and vice versa). We’ll also give you an active vs passive voice quiz to test your skills. Let's get started! What Is Active Voice? The active voice is when the subject of a sentence performs an action on an object. In other words, the subject does the action, and the object receives the action. The active voice is easy to identify in writing because it follows a simple form, which is the basis of English grammar: Subject ( doer) → Verb → Object ( recipient) Here’s an example of a sentence using the active voice: The dog ate my homework. In this example, "the dog" is the subject, "ate" is the verb, and "my homework" is the object. Here’s a diagram to better show this connection: Subject Verb Object The dog ate my homework Here, "the dog" is doing (or, in this case, has already done) the action: it is the one that "ate." Meanwhile, "homework" is the object that is receiving this action of eating. Here’s another example of the active voice at play: She is writing an essay. In this example, "she" is the subject, "is writing" is the verb (in the present progres...