Similarly, “The book was read by Deborah.” The book is the subject (the ‘who’ or ‘what’ that the sentence is about,) and again, see how the subject receives the action: The book was read by Deborah. Therefore, it’s written in the passive voice, and not the active voice. See the sentence, “The piano is played by the girl.” The piano is the subject in the sentence, and here it receives the action of the sentence, i.e., ‘played’, since it was played on by the girl. This is what makes the writing here passive: the fact that the sentence subject receives rather than does the verb or action described in the sentence. See how in each example above, the subject of the sentence receives the act, rather than doing the act described. The board was written on by the teacher.Take a look at the following sentences written in the passive voice: TenseĮxamples of sentences in the passive voice Refer to the table below to see more active voice verbs. Active voice verb list (compared to passive) Look at the example sentences from above being modified to the passive voice. Writing in the passive voice is the inverse or opposite of writing using the active voice. I (subject) am eating (verb) the pizza.The cat (subject) was chasing (verb) the mouse.The teacher (subject) is writing (verb) on the board.See how in each example sentence, the subject actively does the action described in the sentence. Let’s look at a couple examples of sentences written in the active voice: To tell whether writing uses the active or passive voice, look at the subject sentence, and ask: is the subject performing or doing the action, or are they the recipient of the action?
ACTIVE VOICE VS.PASSIVE HOW TO
How to tell when writing uses the active or passive voice Passive voice = when the subject receives an action, instead of being described as doing the action itself. ( Wikipedia)Ī quick trick to remember the difference between writing in the passive and active voice is the following:Īctive voice = action = someone doing an action. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the theme or patient of the main verb – that is, the person or thing that undergoes the action or has its state changed. ( Wikipedia)Ī passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. It is the unmarked voice for clauses featuring a transitive verb in nominative–accusative languages, including English and most other Indo-European languages. FormĪctive voice is a grammatical voice common in many of the world’s languages. The passive voice, on the other hand, describes the subject as receiving the action in a sentence, and so they are the passive subject in the sense that they passively receive the action. This means that when writing in the active voice, there is an active subject, or the subject is doing the action. The active voice describes writing in the present, or actively describes the subject in the sentence doing the sentence action or verb. English has multiple tenses ( which refer to the time at which the action was done, and helps us differentiate between whether the action referred to was in the past, present or future tense).
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