Active and Passive Voice

1. Active and Passive Voice

2. Review of Sentence Structure: • Order of most sentences is Subject, Verb, Object (SVO) • Mollyranhome • Subject • Verb • Object • Subject: the one doing the action • Object: the thing receiving the action

3. Definitions • Active Voice – a verb in this tense expresses an action performed by its subject. • The blazing fire destroyed the walls. • Passive Voice – a verb in this tense expresses an action done to its subject. • The walls were destroyed by the blazing fire.

4. Passive Voice • The object in an active sentence becomes subject of passive. • In passive, the subject is in a prepositional phrase. • Active: She grows corn on her farm. • Passive: Corn is grown on her farm. • Active: She will plant the corn in 2 weeks • Passive: The corn will be planted in 2 weeks.

5. Passive Voice • Notice the change in verb tense: • Active: The students took the test. • Passive: The test was taken by the students. • Active: I remember the Alamo. • Passive: The Alamo was remembered by me.

6. Passive Voice • Verbs in passive sentences have the following construction: • “to be” verb + -ed/-en form of verb. • Active: I remember the Alamo. • Passive: The Alamo was remembered by me.

7. When to Use Passive Voice • When performer of action is difficult to specify. • The mayor was elected by a landslide. • When you don’t know who performed an action. • My brother’s bicycle was stolen yesterday. • When you don’t want to give away the performer’s identity. • Vicious rumors have been spread about him.

8. Remember, however, that active voice writing is much more direct and forceful.

9. Identifying Active/Passive Voice • The art of Lucia Wilcox was admired by many artists around the world. • Her blindness during the last years made her final works particularly interesting. • Exhibits of her paintings were shown in art galleries all over the world. • Her blindness occurred suddenly, though not unexpectedly. • It was caused by a tumor near the optic nerve.