Whether you’re writing customer emails, responding to customer service inquiries, creating blog posts, or anything else, having a grasp of basic grammar is important. Passive voice: The house was damaged by the storm.įinding the subject: What damaged the house? The storm.Īctive voice: The storm damaged the house. Passive voice: Mistakes were made during the presentation.įinding the subject: Who made mistakes during the presentation? The team.Īctive voice: The team made mistakes during the presentation. Passive voice: All the Halloween candy was eaten by my sister.įinding the subject: Who ate all the Halloween candy? My sister.Īctive voice: My sister ate all the Halloween candy. Here are our passive voice examples rewritten in the active voice: If you want to convert a passive voice sentence into the active voice, move the subject to the beginning of the sentence so that the subject is doing the action. Tips on changing passive voice sentences into the active voice Use it sparingly and intentionally, so it doesn’t dilute your writing. In general, you should only use passive voice when you can’t avoid it. Example: Retin-A was initially used to treat acne, but is now also one of the top medications prescribed for anti-aging.
In each case, the subject directly does the action. Let’s look at some straightforward active voice examples to see how this plays out. The sentence structure is usually subject + verb + object.
In this voice, the subject carries out the action. Sentences in the active voice tend to be simpler, clearer, and more direct. Instead, it’s simply a specific form of the verb. Note that the past participle isn’t an entire verb tense, such as the past tense, because you can’t use it on its own. The house was damaged by the storm. (To be + past participle + preposition).Mistakes were made during the presentation. (To be + past participle).All the Halloween candy was eaten by my sister. (To be + past participle + preposition).Let’s look at some examples to break down these elements. This sounds more complicated than it actually is. It’s sometimes followed by the preposition “by” to clarify who or what did the action.
#EXAMPLES OF PASSIVE VOICE PLUS#
You form passive voice with a conjugated form of the verb “to be” plus a past participle. You can find the subject by asking who or what did the action. It’s the dog that’s doing the chasing, so our canine is the subject of the sentence. Subject receiving the action (passive voice): I was chased by the dog. Subject performing the action (active voice): The dog chased me. Here’s an example of this with the subject underlined: If the subject is receiving the action, the sentence is in passive voice. If the subject is performing the action, the sentence is in the active voice. The voice of a sentence describes whether the sentence’s subject is performing or receiving the verb’s action. Let’s get into how passive and active voice differs and when you should use which. Using passive and active voice appropriately makes you a better writer, which will improve your business communications and give your writing some pizazz. Today, we’re going over passive and active voice. Your teacher probably tried drilling the imperfect tense, subject pronouns, subjunctive mood, and more into your brain as you struggled to understand not only the grammar but use it in a different language.
Chances are you got very cozy with grammar during your high school world language class.
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