This is a brief summary of the difference between the active and passive voice, including how they operate and their potential advantages and disadvantages. Examples are also included to help understanding of the construction, use, and advantages and disadvantages of active and passive voice use. T...
Sentences can be written in either the active or passive voice. Neither is incorrect, but each
may be used for different purposes.
Active voice is when the subject of a sentence (the thing/person the sentence is talking about)
performs the verb’s action. Sentences in the active voice have a strong, direct, and clear tone.
E.g.:
• The ferryman pulled the lever.
• The mouse scares the elephant.
• I finished my homework.
All three sentences have a basic active voice construction: subject, verb, and object.
The subject the ferryman performs the action described by the simple, past tense verb pulled.
The subject the mouse performs the action described by the simple, present tense verb scares.
The subject I performs the simple, past tense action finished.
In these examples, the subjects are all doing – they take action in their sentences.
A sentence is in the passive voice, on the other hand, when the subject is acted on by the verb.
The passive voice is usually always constructed with a conjugated form of to be, plus the verb’s
past participle. Doing this usually generates a preposition as well. That sounds much more
complicated than it is – overall, the passive voice is actually quite easy to detect.
E.g.:
• The lever was pulled by the ferryman.
• The elephant is scared by the mouse.
• My homework was finished by me.
These sentences are not incorrect, but you might find that they sound slightly more awkward
than their active counterparts – this is because we are so used to the English language’s active
Subject, Verb, Object sentence structure. Making the sentence passive flips this more expected
structure.
A passive sentence might also make use of a more passive verb, even in the more active SVO
construction – passive verbs, usually progressive, end in ‘ing’, and slow sentences down.
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