Identify passive Voice and Active Voice: Your choice of voice (active/passive) transforms your writing style!
The use of active and passive voice is a debatable topic for writers for years now. Some believe the use of active voice helps them to convey the information clearly emphasizing every aspect whereas some writers argue against it.
While the traditional form of writing involved more usage of passive voice, the trend is now being shifted. The usage of passive voice in academic writing is now restricted to a certain percentage. To deal with this perplexing situation, writers are trying to understand the concept of active voice and passive voice with more clarity now.
After reading this blog you will understand-
- The basic difference between active voice and active voice.
- How to identify passive voice and active voice?
- When should one avoid the use of passive voice?
- When is the use of passive voice acceptable?
Basic Difference: Active Voice VS Passive Voice
The two forms of sentence construction active and passive voice are confusing for almost every other writer. However, the structure of both sentences remains different. Let’s check it out.
Active voice is a direct form of conveying the information and focuses on ‘the actor’, i.e., the one who is performing an action.
Subject (the doer) + Verb (the action) + Object (the receiver of the action)
For example, Shanaya ate the cake.
Whereas, passive voice is used to convey the information indirectly and generally emphasizes ‘the action’ performed or the ‘recipient of the action’.
Object + “be” + Verb + (optional “by” phrase)
For example, The cake was eaten by Shanaya.
By observing the sentence structure after you are done with your writing can help you identify passive voice. Let’s check how to identify passive voice and active voice easily in the next section.
How To Identify Passive Voice & Active Voice?
It is difficult to remember all the rules while writing. Therefore, we have come up with a few basic tips that can help you to identify the use of passive voice and active voice by simply looking at them.
Steps to Identify Passive sentences:
- First, check the sentence structure and the word order.
Active: Shanaya ate the cake.
Passive: The cake was eaten by Shanaya.
- Second, check if the sentence contains a “be” helping verb.
The presence of a ‘Be’ verb indicates passive voice, but it is not always the case. Eight different forms of ‘Be’ verbs are- be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been.
- Third, look for a “by” phrase.
The active voice turns into passive when ‘by’ is introduced after the verb to indicate the does of an action.
Example: The cake was eaten by Shanaya.
Here the use of the ‘by’ phrase indicates that Shanaya performed an action which makes it a passive sentence.
- Use of Past Participles in Passive Voice
Another clue to look for while identifying the passive voice sentences is the use of past participle forms of verbs. Here is the difference between Simple Past Tense and the Past Participle forms of verbs:
|
Verb |
Past Tense |
Past Participle |
|
eat |
ate |
eaten |
|
is |
was |
been |
|
arise |
arose |
arisen |
|
awaken |
awakened |
awakened |
Some verb forms are different in the case of past tense and past participles whereas in the last case, you can clearly see that the spelling of ‘awakened’ is the same which makes the identification slightly difficult.
- Make sure you are not confusing past tense with a passive verb
Active or passive voice sentences do not emphasize on time of action. Instead, focus on the use of the ‘Be’ verb in the sentences
| Active | Passive |
| Simple Present | |
| Students perform dances. | Dances are performed by students. |
| Simple Past | |
| Students performed dances. | Dances were performed by students. |
| Simple Future | |
| Students will perform dances. | Dances will be performed by students. |
The phrase ‘by students’ can be omitted from the sentences given in a passive voice.
When Should One Avoid The Use Of Passive Voice?
The use of passive voice sentences can make the understanding of sentences a bit more complex.
For example:
Active: Joe used to drive his kids to school every day
Passive: The kids used to be driven every day to school (by Joe).
Another important thing to notice is the information about the doer (who is performing the action) can be lost in passive voice sentences. For instance, in the sentence, the kids used to be driven every day to school (by Joe). Here, the sentence is complete even if we did not mention ‘Joe’ but then the readers will not know who drove the kids to school.
Therefore, with the use of active voice, the readers can get all the required information in lesser words.
So, When Is The Use Of Passive Voice Acceptable?
After going through all the examples given above, we can conclude that the use of passive voice is accepted only when the doer of the action is of no importance or not known. The action and the object on which the action is performed are of prime focus for the audience.
For example, The theatres were built in 2000 BC.
Here, who built the theatre is not of prime importance. So, the use of passive voice is acceptable. Hope this detailed article will help you reduce the use of passive voice in your work. In case you need assignment help to write content for your paper with perfection search for online assignment help.
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