![]() ![]() Passive: The bartender was asked by Officer MacDonald if he had seen the missing girl.Passive: The bank was robbed by thieves.Active: The runaway shopping cart hit Harry.Passive: Harry was hit by the runaway shopping cart.Active voice: The quick brown fox bit the lazy dog.Ī few more examples of changing passive to active voice.Give it a try before reading the active version of our dog/fox sentence below, and see how you do by comparing it to our example. It's much more difficult if you have to picture the biting first and then add the dog. You can picture the fox first and then have it bite the dog. This helps your brain create an image in your mind. Make it clear in your sentence WHO is doing WHAT to WHOM. The final step in making the switch is putting the subject at the front of the sentence and the object towards the end. Who or what was the fox biting? The dog, of course! Since we don’t know what the dog is up to, and he’s being acted upon by something else, we can safely assume that he is the object of the sentence. Now that you have identified the subject of the sentence, look for the object of the sentence. Therefore she is the subject of the sentence. The fox however, was doing something: biting. Is the dog the subject? It may be the first noun in the sentence, but what was it doing? The dog was doing nothing, so it can’t be the subject. The subject is the person or thing that is taking an action. The first step in the process is locating the subject. Passive voice: The lazy dog was bitten by the quick brown fox.For our next example, we’ll take a more complex passive sentence. Try it for free! How do I change passive voice into active?Ĭhanging the passive voice into the active voice is simple. Unless your sentence falls into one of those four categories, there is a good chance that you can improve clarity by rewriting.Ī grammar guru, style editor, and writing mentor in one package. Pesticides were discovered in 80% of supermarket fruit by researchers at NYU.Ĥ) When you want to be deliberately vague about responsibility.3) Your focus is on the object, rather than the subject. In this case, we are not concerned with who built the Empire State Building. The Empire State Building was completed in 1931.2) When the doer of the action is irrelevant. In the above instance, we don’t know who robbed the bank. 1) When the doer of the action is unknown. Like most writing rules, there are exceptions! Let’s take a quick look at when passive voice works best. There are a few scenarios when passive voice is best. They can’t really picture the scene until they know who has done the action.ĭon't believe us? We're backed up by our friend George who has sold a book or two in his time: Imagine that you're painting a picture of the scene in your reader’s head. It’s usually better to put your action up front. Action and the verbs showing action is what gives your writing power. In the first example you have to wait until the end of the sentence to find out who is doing the action, which means your sentence has less impact. ![]() Both sentences are essentially saying the same thing, but in the first one, the focus is on the bottle in the second, the focus is on Joe. He is doing the recycling, and the bottle is the object of the recycling. In the above example, Joe is the subject, he is the do-er. With each sentence, think about who is doing the action. Let's look at some examples of passive and active voice: The passive voice means that you have written the object of your sentence first and then put the subject of your sentence at the end. What's the difference between active and passive voice? ![]() However, it’s often stylistically better to use active voice. Here’s the thing: passive voice isn’t actually grammatically incorrect. Many self-proclaimed grammar snobs consider passive voice to be incorrect. Passive voice is one of the most polarizing bad writing habits out there.
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