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ACTIVE VS. PASSIVE VOICE Active and passive voices refer to the relationship between the subject and the verb. In an active sentence, the subject is doing something. In a passive sentence, the subject does nothing; it is acted upon. Although there are occasions when the passive voice is appropriate, it can sound dull and wordy. The passive voice has its specific uses in writing, but most of your writing will not need the passive voice because the active voice makes your writing stronger and livelier. Switching from passive to active voice is really very simple. Instead of having something happen to the subject, you make the subject do something. The pizza was eaten by the girls. (passive) s. The girls ate the pizza. (active) s. Sometimes, you may be tempted to use the passive voice to avoid a first person point of view. The result can be stilted and awkward. The house was cleaned, the fish were fed, and then the expensive vase was broken. (passive, 3rd person) I cleaned the house, I fed the fish, and then I broke the expensive vase. (active, 1st person) In other words, it’s important to ask yourself, “who kicked whom?”. Once you are able to recognize the subject of the active sentence, you should be able to make a passive sentence active, so that the object becomes the subject of the active sentence. Sally kicked John. (active) s. o. John was kicked by Sally. (passive) s. o. In both sentences, Sally is the one who is doing the action. If you find you are using the passive voice in your writing, here are three steps to help you turn a passive sentence into an active one: 1. The original object becomes the subject. 2. Delete the to be form + Past Participle 3. The object of the “active” sentence becomes subject in the “passive” sentence, and the subject of the “active” sentence becomes “object” in the “passive” sentence (or is left out). 1 This is much easier than it sounds. Let’s turn a passive sentence into an active sentence. Passive: The cookie was given to John. s. v. o. In this sentence, “the cookie” is the subject, “was given” is the verb, and “John” is the indirect object. To make this sentence active, we need to turn the object, John, into the subject. John ate the cookie. (Active) s. v. o. The cookie is a direct object because it is the thing being acted upon by the subject, John. He is eating the cookie. We have listed active and passive forms in the following table. We used the phrase I choose and have put this phrase into most common tenses. Active (Simple Forms) Passive (Simple Forms) Simple Present I choose Simple Present I am chosen Simple Past I chose Simple Past Present Perfect I have chosen Present Perfect I have been chosen Past Perfect I had chosen Past Perfect I had been chosen will-future I will choose will-future I will be chosen Future Perfect I will have chosen Future Perfect I will have been chosen Conditional I I would choose Conditional I I would be chosen Conditional II I would have chosen Conditional II I would have been chosen I was chosen Active (Progressive/Continuous Forms) Passive (Progressive/Continuous Forms) Simple Present I am choosing Present I am being chosen Simple Past I was choosing Past I was being chosen Present Perfect I have been choosing Present Perfect ¹ I have been being chosen Past Perfect I had been choosing Past Perfect ¹ I had been being chosen will-future I will be choosing Future ¹ I will be being chosen Future Perfect I will have been choosing Future Perfect ¹ I will have been being chosen Conditional I I would be choosing Conditional I ¹ I would be being chosen I would have been I would have been being Conditional II ¹ choosing chosen ¹ These tenses are rarely used in everyday conversation. Conditional II 2 Here you will find some examples of how to form the passive depending on the tense. Tense Active Passive Simple Present Peter builds a house. A house is built by Peter. Simple Past Peter built a house. A house was built by Peter. Present Perfect Peter has built a house. A house has been built by Peter. Past Perfect Peter had built a house. A house had been built by Peter. will-future Peter will build a house. A house will be built by Peter. going to-future Peter is going to build a house in summer. A house is going to be built in summer by Peter. Questions in Passive Voice Yes/No questions in Passive voice, in both simple present and simple past tense, are formed with to be and the past participle. Sometimes, you use question words, such as who, when, where, when, why, and what to make a question. 1a. Questions without question words in Passive (Simple Present) Form of to be Is Are Subject Past participle the test written grapes grown Yes/No Subject Auxiliary (+ n’t) Yes, it is. in room 311? No, it is not. No, it isn’t. Yes, they are. in California? No, they are not. No, they aren’t. Rest 3 1b. Questions with question words in Passive (Simple Present) Question Form of word to be Subject Past Rest participle Where is the test written? Why are grapes grown Answer The test is written in room 311. in California? Grapes are grown in California because it's warm and sunny. 2a. Questions without question words in Passive (Simple Past) Form Subject of to be Was the book the students Were Past participle Rest taken to the classroom? taught at home? Yes/No Subject Auxiliary (+ n't) Yes, it was. No, it was not. No, it wasn’t. Yes, they were. No, they were not. No, they weren’t. 2b. Questions with question words in Passive (Simple Past) Question word Form Subject of to be Where was the book taken? were the taught students Why Past Rest participle Answer The book was taken to the classroom. The students were taught at at home because the school was home? closed. When to Use Passive Voice There are certain times when it is appropriate to use the passive voice. The first is when you do not need to know who did something, or when we don’t know who did it. My car was stolen yesterday. (passive) Someone stole my car yesterday. (active) 4 You can also use the Passive voice in incidents of tragedy, accident or violence. She was kidnapped. (passive) Someone kidnapped her. (active) Exercise: Change the following sentences to the active voice. 1. A candidate will be elected as mayor by the public next year. 2. A batch of cookies was made by my son this morning. 3. The subway fare will be raised to $1.50 next week by the city. 4. The play has been called witty and warm by well-known and knowledgeable critics. 5. The pumpkin was tossed off the bridge by that group of trick-or-treaters. 6. My book was dropped off at the library. 7. An example of a passive sentence was demanded by the professor. 8. The guitar was played by the musician. This handout is based on the following texts: Harper, Vincent F. Essentials of English. Fourth Ed. Barron’s, USA. 1990. Kolln, Martha. Understanding English Grammer. Second Ed. MacMillan Publishing Company, New York. 1986. For further reference, see the following books: Beason, Larry and Mark Lester. A Commonsense Guide to Grammar and Usage. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford. Holschuh, Louis W. The Functions of English Grammar. New York: St. Martin’s. All of the above texts are available in the Writing Center. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.lavc.edu/writingcenter/ Rev. 07/08/13 5