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How Do You Fix Passive Voice In A Sentence?

In English, every sentence needs a verb. Verbs tell us what is happening or what someone or something is doing. As it happens, verbs generally come in two different “voices.” They are the active voice and the passive voice. The active voice tends to be more direct and appears in shorter sentences like We ate lunch. On the other hand, the passive voice tends to be more roundabout and appears in longer sentences like Lunch was eaten by us.

So how do we know which voice to use? Are they really all that different? Before we lose our voice asking lots of good questions, it is time we learned about the two voices that we use in writing and speech in English.

What is passive voice?

The passive voice is the voice used when a subject of a sentence or clause is acted on by the verb. In other words, the subject is having something done to it rather than doing something itself.

Take a look at this sentence:

 

• The sandwich was eaten by Jeremy.

As you probably know, the subject of this sentence is the sandwich. Reading the sentence, you know that the sandwich isn’t doing anything. Instead, Jeremy is the one doing something; he ate the sandwich. In this sentence, the subject is the receiver rather than the performer of the action. Since this is the case, this sentence uses the passive voice. In a manner of speaking, a sentence that uses the passive voice looks backwards because it seems as though the direct object (which typically receives an action) is the subject.

When used in a sentence or clause, the passive voice uses a basic structure. This is:

 

• [subject] + [the properly conjugated form of the verb be] + [past participle of a verb]

The verb be will be conjugated to adhere to subject-verb agreement and will be in the proper verb tense. In addition to this basic structure, the passive voice often uses a prepositional phrase beginning with the word by to identify who or what is performing an action to the subject. The phrase by Jeremy serves this purpose in our above example.

Read more in depth about the passive voice here.

Passive voice examples

All of the following examples demonstrate the passive voice being used in a variety of sentences.

 

• The survey is being completed by the entire school.
• Peter has been bitten by spiders on a regular basis.
• School will be canceled tomorrow.
• Arianna was chosen to be the leader of our club.

What is active voice?

The active voice is the voice used when the subject is doing something rather than having something done to it. For example, the sentence The monkey is eating a banana is a sentence that uses the active voice. In this sentence, the subject (the monkey) is the one doing the thing described by the verb (eating). Unlike the passive voice, a sentence that uses the active voice can also have a direct object that identifies who or what is receiving the action of the verb. Our example sentence has a direct object (a banana) that says what the monkey is eating.

In general, the active voice is the voice that is used much more often in academic and formal writing and speech. Even in casual speech and writing, it is usually the voice that comes most naturally to speakers and writers.

There is no special structure or special rules when it comes to using the active voice. The active voice follows the basic sentence structure of a subject followed by a verb as in Birds fly. Of course, any verb used in the active voice must follow subject-verb agreement so that the sentence is grammatically correct.

Dive even deeper into the active voice here.

Active voice examples

The following sentences all use the active voice. You’ll notice that in each one the subject is the one performing the action described by the verb.

 

• The pitcher threw the baseball.
• Pandas eat bamboo.
• The children are sleeping.
• We will go to the beach when it stops raining.

Passive vs. active voice comparison

Let’s compare the passive and active voices by looking at how they can be used in sentences. In the following list, each pair of sentences expresses the same meaning with the first using the active voice and the second using the passive voice.

 

• Active: I bought some new shoes.
• Passive: Some new shoes were bought by me.

 

• Active: Our team is winning the game.
• Passive: The game is being won by our team.

 

• Active: James met his sister by the gate.
• Passive: James’s sister was met by the gate by him.

 

• Active: We will ride the bus to New York City.
• Passive: The bus to New York City will be ridden by us.

 

• Active: We are going to have a long day tomorrow: we will race cars, eat a big lunch, and then enjoy the concert.
• Passive: A long day is going to be had tomorrow by us: cars will be raced by us, a big lunch will be eaten by us, and then a concert will be enjoyed by us.

However, there are some instances where you may decide that the passive voice is best. Some examples include:

 

• When avoiding assigning blame: The toy was broken vs. Nathan broke the toy.
• When the performer of an action is unknown, unimportant, or obvious: The suspect was arrested this morning. (Obviously, the police arrested the suspect)
• When it is obvious who is performing the action: 50g of magnesium was added to the compound. Scientific papers will often use the passive voice because it is obvious that scientists or researchers are the ones performing actions.
• When shifting the focus of a sentence: The pyramids were built by the ancient Egyptians vs. The ancient Egyptians built the pyramids.
• When a subject does something and has something done to it at the same time: The talkative parrots entertained the guests and were fed crackers by their handlers.

Here’s a helpful tip: intransitive verbs mainly use the active voice. The reason why makes sense if you think about what intransitive verbs are. They are verbs that show complete actions but are not accompanied by a direct object or form a passive. (Remember that many verbs have both transitive and intransitive senses.) This might be easier to understand with some examples.

The following two sentences show intransitive verbs used in the active and passive voice. The first sentence is grammatically correct while the second sentence is absurd and doesn’t make any sense.

 

• Active: The flowers are blossoming.
• Passive: The flowers are being blossomed.

Review the different verb tenses so you can identify passive and active voice in each of them.

Passive voice misuse

In general, it is a good idea to use the active voice unless you have a good reason to use the passive voice instead. Misusing or overusing the passive voice will often lead to sloppy writing or grammar errors that will confuse or annoy listeners or readers. In most cases, it is a good idea to double check your writing. Often, any passive voice sentences can be replaced with shorter, clearer active voice sentences.

How to fix passive voice

Most of the time, it is relatively simple to change a passive voice sentence into an active voice sentence. In order to do it, there are three simple steps:

 

1. Identify who or what is actually performing the action described by the verb in the sentence. This will become the subject of our active voice sentence.
2. Get rid of the verb be and turn the past participle into a correctly conjugated verb. This new verb must agree with our new subject.
3. Take the subject of the old sentence and turn it into a direct object.

That’s all there is to it! Keep in mind that the new sentence must have the same meaning as the old one.

Let’s put these steps into practice by turning a passive voice sentence into an active voice sentence. Here is our example sentence:

 

• The cake was eaten by the girls.

Let’s use our steps:

 

1. Who or what is doing something? The answer is the girls. The girls are the ones who are performing an action (eating). So, the girls will be the subject of our new sentence.
2. We get rid of the verb be (was) and turn the past participle (eaten) into a verb tense that expresses the same meaning as the original sentence. In this case, the simple past tense verb ate is a good choice.
3. We take our old subject (the cake) and turn it into a direct object.

Our new sentence becomes:

 

• The girls ate the cake.

This sentence uses the active voice and is a little shorter and easier to read, too.

Before you go fixing every passive voice sentence, make sure the sentence you want to fix is actually in the passive voice. Sometimes, a sentence seems to use passive voice when it actually doesn’t. For example, take a look at the following sentence:

 

• The director was pleased when he saw the actors’ performance.

Although this sentence looks like it uses the passive voice, it doesn’t. In this sentence, pleased is acting as an adjective and was is used as a linking verb. Because past participles can be used either to make the passive voice or as adjectives, it is important to read a sentence carefully to identify the true purpose of the past participle.

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Active and Passive Voice | Rules for All Tenses

Mark Twain was in London when he heard that his obituary news had been published by mistake. He sent a cable to the USA, which read: the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.

Introduction to Active and Passive Voice

Voice is one of the five basic properties of English grammar. The other four are mood, tense, person, and number. Voice is the connection between the subject and the object, which are linked through a verb. It’s interesting to see how English enables us to play with sentences by changing the word order, and come up with two entirely different structures to form active and passive. While the active voice is undoubtedly the more common of the two, the passive voice is used to serve certain purposes. In this lesson, we are going to take a look at how and when we use active and passive voices.

What Is Active Voice?

The active voice is a style of writing where the subject acts upon its verb. Here, the subject always comes first, followed by the verb and the complements. The active voice is so called because, unlike the passive voice where the subject is passive, the subject here is active.

Example Sentences with Active Voice

Andrew hit the ball.

Students always learn by doing.

People call Orlando the theme park capital of the world.

Catherine doesn’t enjoy visiting malls.

When to Use Active Voice

The active voice is the more preferred of the two voices. Because using active voice helps make writing shorter, more precise, and more straightforward, a lot of people choose to use it in most of their communication. This means unless there is a specific requirement making passive voice an ideal choice, we stick to active voice. Given this fact, there are more rules for when to use passive voice than there are for when to use active voice.

Advantages of Active Voice

• Since a sentence in active voice has a clear subject, it is easier for the reader to understand the sentence.

  Consider the below sentence, for example:

  I love reading Mark Twain’s witty quotes. (active voice)

  If we wrote the sentence in passive voice, it would sound awkward.

  Reading Mark Twain’s witty quotes is loved by me. (passive voice)

  If we rewrote the sentence “Reading Mark Twain’s witty quotes is a favorite pastime of mine”, it would sound great. But, this is yet again an instance of active voice and not of passive voice.

• Active voice instantly connects with the reader. This is because it’s free from the tangle of phrases that often accompany the passive voice.

  Read the following example:

  Mr. Miller said the park must introduce an entrance fee in order to facilitate uninterrupted service. (active voice)

  It was said by Mr. Miller that an entrance fee must be introduced by the park in order for uninterrupted service to be facilitated. (passive voice)

  The string of phrases introduced in the passive version of this sentence makes it a little hard for the reader to understand. Hence, we prefer to use the active voice.

What Is Passive Voice?

The passive voice is the style of writing where you change the order of words and make the object of the action the subject of a sentence. In other words, the subject is the recipient of a verb’s action. It’s called passive because, unlike the active voice where the subject is active, the real subject is passive here.

How to Recognize Passive Voice

To recognize if a sentence is in passive voice, look for the following words. This is not an exhaustive list, though.

by

is

are

being

has been

have been

will be

Example Sentences with Passive Voice

Kim’s wallet was stolen during the fair.

50 volunteers are required to make the campaign a success.

Over 1000 people were killed during the war.

The results will be published later today.

When to Use Passive Voice

There are specific rules for when using the passive voice is better or more appropriate than using active voice.

• when we don’t know who is responsible for the action

  Examples:

  My pet dog has been stolen. (Someone has stolen the dog; we don’t know who it is.)

  My essay has been corrected. (You gave your essay to the correction service, and one of the teachers corrected it.)

• when it’s not important who did the action, or we don’t want people to know who did it

  Examples:

  My car was fixed on Monday. (What is important is that the car was fixed; we don’t really care who fixed it.)

  Mistakes were made. (We don’t want to specifically mention who made the mistakes.)

• when the reader or listener knows who did the action

  Example:

  Kenneth has been asked to submit the grammar assignment again. (It’s obvious from the context that it’s the English teacher who has asked Kenneth to submit the assignment again.)

• when people in general are responsible for the action

  Example:

  The worksheet can be freely downloaded from the website. (Anybody can download a free worksheet, so the passive voice is used.)

• when we report crimes or write in scientific contexts

  Examples:

  The burglars were arrested as soon as they left the building.

  The animals were kept in a zoo for two years as part of an experiment.

Subjects in Passive Voice

The subject in passive voice is introduced with “by”. That said, not every passive sentence has a by phrase containing the subject. Subjects can sometimes be assumed or remembered from a previous sentence.

Examples:

The dish was prepared by Grandma. (The subject is introduced in the by phrase.)

After the party, a lot of food was wasted. (The subject is not mentioned, but it can be assumed from the context.)

There was a gathering at Grandma’s. All family members were invited. (In the second sentence, the subject “Grandma” is remembered from the first sentence.)

How to Convert Active Voice into Passive Voice

The chart below includes all tenses that are used in passive voice. There is no passive voice for perfect progressive tenses (present, past, and future) and future progressive tense.

Tense

Active Voice

Passive Voice

Active Sentence

Passive Sentence

present simple

read

is read

Keith reads the poem.

The poem is read by Keith.

present progressive

is reading

is being read

Keith is reading the poem.

The poem is being read by Keith.

past simple

read

was read

Keith read the poem.

The poem was read by Keith.

past progressive

was reading

was being read

Keith was reading the poem.

The poem was being read by Keith.

future simple

will read

will be read

Keith will read the poem.

The poem will be read by Keith.

present perfect

has read

has been read

Keith has read the poem.

The poem has been read by Keith.

past perfect

had read

had been read

Keith had read the poem.

The poem had been read by Keith.

future perfect

will have read

will have been read

Keith will have read the poem.

The poem will have been read by Keith.

conditional present

would read

would be read

If Keith had the poem, he would read it.

If Keith had the poem, it would be read by him.

conditional past

would have read

would have been read

Keith would have read the poem if he had had it.

The poem would have been read by Keith if he had had it.

present infinitive

to read

to be read

Keith wants to read the poem.

The poem wants to be read by Keith.

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