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Passive Voice vs. Active Voice
Dec
When you look over these sentences, can you identify the ones written in passive voice and the ones using active voice?
- The blog post was being published by DML Editing & Writing.
- DML Editing & Writing had published the blog post.
- The blog post is published by DML Editing & Writing.
- The blog post will be published by DML Editing & Writing.
If you answered: “The only active sentence is ‘2,’ and the rest are passive” — you are correct! And if you’re not sure why that’s the right answer? Don’t fear, that’s why this post is here. We’ll show you exactly how to spot passive voice, how to fix it, and that it’s A-Okay to use passive voice.
What is passive voice?
A sentence written with passive voice emphasizes the person or thing that experiences the action, instead of the person or thing driving the action.
For example, consider this line:
“In the beginning the Universe was created.”
The subject of the sentence is “the Universe.” The action of the sentence is “created.” Because the subject is receiving the action (the creation is happening to the Universe), this is a passive sentence.
Passive sentences are comprised of the auxiliary verb ‘to be’ and the past tense of the main verb. For example:
“Am / Are / Is” + past verb tense — The dog is walked by his owner.
“Am / Are / Is being” + past verb tense — The dogs are being walked by their owners.
“Was / Were” + past verb tense — The dog was walked by his owner.
“Was / Were being” + past verb tense — The dogs were being walked by their owners.
“Will be” + past verb tense — The dog will be walked by its owner.
“Will have been” + past verb tense — The dog will have been walked by its owner.
“Have / Has been” + past verb tense — The dog has been walked by its owner.
“Had been” + past verb tense — The dog had been walked by its owner.
An important thing to note about passive voice is that it differs from past tense. Passive voice refers to who the action relates to, while past tense refers to when the action happened. For example, the sentence “The chef cooked dinner” is past tense because “cooked” is the past tense of “cooking.” However, the subject of the sentence is the chef, who is performing the action, so the sentence is active, not passive.
There are two types of passive sentences…
Short passive, in which the subject or performer is not known. For instance, the above example is short passive because it does not identify who/what the Universe was created by.
Long passive, in which the agent performing the action is known but it is not the subject of the sentence. For instance, the The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe example turns into a long passive sentence if changed to: “In the beginning, the Universe was created by the aliens.”
Passive Voice Examples:
These sentences all feature the action happening to the subject.
- “He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was made.” (The action “was born” is happening to the subject “he.”)
- “Scarlet O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.” (The action “caught by her charm” is happening to a subject “the Tarleton twins.”)
- “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.” (The action “got his arm badly broken” is happening to the subject “Jem.”)
- “When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.” (The second part of this sentence sees the action “changed into a monstrous vermin” subjecting “Gregor Samsa.”)
What is active voice?
Active voice is a sentence or clause that emphasizes the person or thing that drives the action, instead of the person or thing experiencing the action.
The following sentence:
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
The subject of the sentence is “the clocks.” The action of the sentence is “striking.” Because the subject is driving the action (the clocks are doing the striking), this is an active sentence.
Active Voice Examples:
These sentences all feature the subject enacting action.
“It was the day my grandmother exploded.” (The subject “grandmother” is doing the action “exploded”).
“Mother died today.” (The subject “mother” is doing the action “died.”)
“I write this sitting at the kitchen sink.” (The subject “I” is doing the action “write” and “sitting.”)
“You know, at one time, I used to break into pet shops to liberate the canaries.” (The subject “I” is doing the action “break into pet shops” and “liberate the canaries.”)
Active vs Passive voice: Why is considered better than the other?
It’s not a big secret in the world of grammar that passive voice is often considered bad form. Supposedly, active voice produces stronger, more direct sentences that make your writing feel more active. But is passive voice actually grammatically incorrect? Nope! There are definitely times when using the passive voice can enhance a statement’s clarity.
When to Use Passive Voice
If you are writing something that requires objectivity, like a research paper, passive voice can be your friend: It allows you to more easily avoid personal pronouns and to present information in a that sounds unbiased. Or maybe you want to leave the perpetrator behind the action unclear. If the action itself or the thing/person receiving the action is more significant than the perpetrator, emphasize either element by writing a short passive sentence, leaving the driving force of the action out.
For example, if you write: “The woman was sentenced to five years in jail” — the emphasis here is on the woman’s having received a sentence of jail. If you wrote: “The judge sentenced the woman to five years in jail” — the emphasis here is on the judge’s ruling instead.
As you can see, passive voice isn’t something you need to avoid at all costs: sometimes, it’s the right choice. However, if you’re writing something meant to invite readers in — like a novel, for example — then relying too heavily on passive voice can cause writing that feels a little flat and loses a reader’s interest.
How to Fix Passive Voice in 2 Easy Steps
To show you the two fool-proof steps to fixing passive voice, we’ll use the following passive sentence as an example: “The dress was being made by the tailor.”
- Remove the auxiliary verb
Passive sentences often contain some form of the auxiliary verb “to be.” In this example, the auxiliary verb is “was being.”
Take the auxiliary verb out and the sentence becomes: The dress was made by the tailor.
But this is still passive, so the next step is to…
- Change the subject of the sentence
The subject is “the dress” because the action in this sentence is happening to it (“the dress is being made.”) The subject of this sentence can be changed by attributing the action to the person performing it —, the tailor. The sentence now becomes:
The tailor made the dress.
Congratulations! The subject is now the action-performer, meaning this sentence is now active!
More Examples Below:
Passive: The dinner was cooked by the chef.
Active: The chef cooked dinner.
Passive: The flowers were being planted by the gardener.
Active: The gardener was planting the flowers.
Passive: I had been interviewed by the manager.
Active: The manager interviewed me.
Passive: The students had been graded by the teacher.
Active: The teacher was grading the students.
Passive: The book was written by the author.
Active: The author wrote the book.
Passive: The house is being built by the construction workers.
Active: The construction workers are building the house.
