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Voice is used to describe more than one thing when it comes to writing. It can refer to the general “feel” of a piece of writing, similar to hearing the literal voice of a speaker and picking up on their attitude, or it can be used in a more technical sense. In this module, we will focus on the technical side as we discuss active and passive voice.
You’ve probably heard of the passive voice—perhaps in a comment from an English teacher or in the grammar checker of a word processor. In both of these instances, you were (likely) guided away from the passive voice. Why is this the case? Let’s investigate.(36)
There are two main “voices” in English writing: the active voice and the passive voice. You’ve probably heard a lot about them—and you’ve probably been warned not to use the passive voice. But what exactly distinguishes the active voice from the passive voice?
In the simplest terms, an active voice sentence is written in the form of “A does B.” (For example, “Carmen sings the song.”) In such instances, a subject is at the front of the sentence doing something that is expressed by the verb. A passive voice sentence, on the other hand, is written in the form of “B is done by A.” (For example, “The song is sung by Carmen.”) In this instance, the sentence has been turned around so that the object of the action (the song) is in the subject position at the front of the sentence. Both constructions are grammatically sound and correct. Let’s look at a couple more examples of the passive voice:
- I’ve been hit! (or, I have been hit!)
- Jasper was thrown from the car when it was struck from behind.
Notice that in each of these sentences the subject of the sentence is not the person (or thing) performing the action. The passive voice “hides” who does the action by putting the person or thing being affected by the verb first. Despite these sentences being grammatically sound, we don’t know who hit “me” or what struck the car.
The passive voice is created using a form of the verb to be and the past participle of an action verb. In the following example, we have formed the passive voice by joining the past tense form of to be (was) with the past participle form of the verb place (placed):
- The suitcase was placed on the bench.
You must be careful when identifying passive sentences; remember that forms of the verb to be (like am, is, are, was, and were) have other uses than just creating the passive voice. Consider the following two sentences:
- She was falling.
- His keys were rusty.
Neither of these sentences is a passive sentence. In the first, the form of to be (was) is a helping verb used to create a continuous past verb (was falling), and in the second, to be is a past tense linking verb (were) connecting the adjective “rusty” back to “keys.”
There are two key features that will help you identify a passive sentence:
- Something is happening (the sentence has a verb that is not a linking verb).
- The subject of the sentence (the person or thing at the front of the sentence) is not doing that thing.(37)(38)
As you read the two sentences below, think about how the different voice may affect the meaning or implications of each one:
- Passive voice
- The rate of evaporation is controlled by the size of an opening.
- Active voice
- The size of an opening controls the rate of evaporation.
The passive voice slightly emphasizes “the rate of evaporation” in the first sentence, while the active voice emphasizes “the size of an opening” in the second sentence. Both of these sentences are relatively clear and easy to understand. However, some passive constructions can produce grammatically tangled sentences such as this:
Groundwater flow is influenced by zones of fracture concentration, as can be recognized by the two model simulations (see Figures 1 and 2), by which one can see . . .
The sentence is difficult to read. As often happens, the passive voice here has smothered potential verbs and kicked off a runaway train of prepositions. On the other hand, the reader’s task gets much easier in the revised version below:
Two model simulations (Figures 1 and 2) illustrate how zones of fracture concentration influence groundwater flow. These simulations show . . .
To revise the above, all we did was look for the two buried things (simulations and zones) in the original version that could actually do something, and we made the sentence clearly about these two nouns by placing them in front of active verbs. This is the general principle to follow as you compose in the active voice: place concrete nouns that can perform work in front of active verbs.(37)(38)
Select the box to reveal its information.
There are several different situations where the passive voice is more useful than the active voice. Let’s take a look at some of those situations.
When you don’t know who did the action, the passive voice is useful. Consider the following sentence:
The paper had been moved.
The active voice would be something like this: “Someone had moved the paper.” While this sentence is technically fine, the passive voice sentence has a subtler element of mystery, which can be especially helpful in creating a mood in fiction.
Moreover, the passive voice can hide who did the action of a sentence:
The window had been broken.
This sentence is either hiding who broke the window or indicating that the writer does not know who broke it. Again, the sentence can be reformed to say “Someone had broken the window,” but using the word “someone” clearly indicates that a person (though we may not know who) is at fault. If the cause of the break is unknown, this active construction would be misleading (after all, something like a tree branch could have broken the window). Using the passive puts the focus on the window rather than on whoever or whatever broke it, as the actor is completely left out of the sentence.
When you want to emphasize the person or thing the action was done to, the passive voice is the best choice, such as in the following example:
Caroline was hurt when Kent broke up with her.
We automatically focus on the subject at the front of the sentence, so in this instance we focus on Caroline. If the sentence were to say “Kent hurt Caroline when he broke up with her,” then our focus would be drawn to Kent.
Finally, the passive voice is appropriate when the active version of a sentence would feature a subject that can’t actually do anything:
Caroline was hurt when she fell into the trees.
While the active voice of this sentence would say “The trees hurt Caroline,” the trees didn’t actually do anything. Thus, it makes more sense to have Caroline as the subject rather than saying “The trees hurt Caroline when she fell into them.”(40)
(36) Voice. Provided by: Lumen Learning. License: CC BY: Attribution
(37) Revision and Adaptation. Provided by: Lumen Learning. License: CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
(38) The Passive versus Active Voice Dilemma. Authored by: Joe Schall. Provided by: The Pennsylvania State University. License: CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
(39) Power-Revision Techniques: Sentence-Level Revision. Authored by: David McMurrey. License: CC BY: Attribution
(40)Revision and Adaptation. Provided by: Lumen Learning. License: CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
