Active and Passive Voice



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Active and Passive Voice





Grammar Packet (Weeks 5-6)







Mr. Manser

Active Voice:


In sentences written in active voice, the subject performs the action expressed in the verb; the subject acts.










 

Passive Voice:


In sentences written in passive voice, the subject receives the action expressed in the verb; the subject is acted upon. The agent performing the action may appear in a "by the . . ." phrase or may be omitted.







(Agent performing action has been omitted.)



 

Sometimes the use of passive voice can create awkward sentences, as in the last example above. In addition, overuse of passive voice throughout an essay can cause your prose to seem flat and uninteresting. In scientific writing, however, passive voice is more readily accepted since using it allows one to write without using personal pronouns or the names of particular researchers as the subjects of sentences (see the third example above). This practice helps to create the appearance of an objective, fact-based discourse because writers can present research and conclusions without attributing them to particular agents. Instead, the writing appears to convey information that is not limited or biased by individual perspectives or personal interests.

You can recognize passive-voice expressions because the verb phrase will always include a form of be, such as am, is, was, were, are, or been. The presence of a be-verb, however, does not necessarily mean that the sentence is in passive voice. Another way to recognize passive-voice sentences is that they may include a "by the..." phrase after the verb; the agent performing the action, if named, is the object of the preposition in this phrase.

Choosing Active Voice:


In most nonscientific writing situations, active voice is preferable to passive for the majority of your sentences. Even in scientific writing, overuse of passive voice or use of passive voice in long and complicated sentences can cause readers to lose interest or to become confused. Sentences in active voice are generally--though not always-- clearer and more direct than those in passive voice.


Passive (indirect)

Active (direct):












Sentences in active voice are also more concise than those in passive voice because fewer words are required to express action in active voice than in passive.




Passive (more wordy)

Active (more concise)








Changing passive to active:


If you want to change a passive-voice sentence to active voice, find the agent in a "by the..." phrase, or consider carefully who or what is performing the action expressed in the verb. Make that agent the subject of the sentence, and change the verb accordingly. Sometimes you will need to infer the agent from the surrounding sentences that provide context.


Passive Voice

Agent

Changed to Active Voice



most of the class





agent not specified; most likely agents such as "the researchers"





the CIA director and his close advisors





agent not specified; most likely agents such as "we"



 

Choosing Passive Voice:


While active voice helps to create clear and direct sentences, sometimes writers find that using an indirect expression is rhetorically effective in a given situation, so they choose passive voice. In addition, as mentioned above, writers in the sciences conventionally use passive voice more often than writers in other discourses. Passive voice makes sense when the agent performing the action is obvious, unimportant, or unknown or when a writer wishes to postpone mentioning the agent until the last part of the sentence or to avoid mentioning the agent at all. The passive voice is effective in such circumstances because it highlights the action and what is acted upon rather than the agent performing the action.


Active

Passive

The dispatcher is notifying police that three prisoners have escaped.

Police are being notified that three prisoners have escaped.

Surgeons successfully performed a new experimental liver-transplant operation yesterday.

A new experimental liver-transplant operation was performed successfully yesterday.

"Authorities make rules to be broken," he said defiantly.

"Rules are made to be broken," he said defiantly.

In each of these examples, the passive voice makes sense because the agent is relatively unimportant compared to the action itself and what is acted upon.


Changing active to passive:


If you want to change an active-voice sentence to passive voice, consider carefully who or what is performing the action expressed in the verb, and then make that agent the object of a "by the..." phrase. Make what is acted upon the subject of the sentence, and change the verb to a form of be + past participle. Including an explicit "by the..." phrase is optional.


Active Voice

Agent

Changed to Passive Voice



The presiding officer





The leaders





The scientists


In each of these examples, the passive voice is useful for highlighting the action and what is acted upon instead of the agent.


Some suggestions:


  1. Avoid starting a sentence in active voice and then shifting to passive.




Unnecessary shift in voice:

Revised:

Many customers in the restaurant found the coffee too bitter to drink, but it was still ordered frequently.

Many customers in the restaurant found the coffee too bitter to drink, but they still ordered it frequently.

He tried to act cool when he slipped in the puddle, but he was still laughed at by the other students.

He tried to act cool when he slipped in the puddle, but the other students still laughed at him.




  1. Avoid dangling modifiers caused by the use of passive voice. A dangling modifier is a word or phrase that modifies a word not clearly stated in the sentence.




Dangling modifier with passive voice:

Revised:

To save time, the paper was written on a computer. (Who was saving time? The paper?)

To save time, Kristin wrote the paper on a computer.

Seeking to lay off workers without taking the blame, consultants were hired to break the bad news. Who was seeking to lay off workers? The consultants?)

Seeking to lay off workers without taking the blame, the CEO hired consultants to break the bad news.




  1. Do not trust the grammar-checking programs in word-processing software. Many grammar checkers flag all passive constructions, but you may want to keep some that are flagged. Trust your judgment, or ask another human being for their opinion about which sentence sounds best.



Directions: Change the sentences below to the active voice.


        1. The statue is being visited by hundreds of tourists every year.

        2. My books were stolen by someone yesterday.

        3. These books had been left in the classroom by a careless student.

        4. Coffee is raised in many parts of Hawaii by plantation workers.

        5. The house had been broken into by someone while the owners were on vacation.

        6. A woman was being carried downstairs by a very strong firefighter.

        7. The streets around the fire had been blocked off by the police.

        8. Have you seen the new movie that was directed by Ron Howard?

        9. My car is in the garage being fixed by a dubious mechanic.

        10. A great deal of our oil will have been exported to other countries by our government.

Directions: Identify and eliminate the passive constructions in the sentences below.


        1. The particular topic chosen by the instructor for study in his section of English 2 must be approved by the Steering Committee.

        2. Recommendations concerning the type of study needed to assure adequate definition of the larger problem and develop feasible options in programs designed to eliminate or greatly reduce both the direct and indirect effects within a reasonable time and at acceptable cost were presented in the report.

        3. Avoidance of such blunders should not be considered a virtue for which the student is to be commended, any more than he would be praised for not wiping his hands on the tablecloth or polishing his shoes with guest towels.

        4. Collaborative analytical determinations were utilized to assess the probable consequences of mechanical failure.

        5. The difference between restrictives and nonrestrictives can also be better approached through a study of the different contours that mark the utterance of the two kinds of element than through confusing attempts to differentiate the two by meaning.

        6. Individuals whose income is insufficient to lift them above poverty must be provided with assistance from public sources.

        7. In the next thirty-five years it is expected that there will be more engineering work to be done than has been done in all of recorded history.

        8. If expansion is not accomplished, then two less-efficient alternatives must be acted upon: either the book sales will have to be in separate quarters or else the whole enterprise will have to be moved to a new location.

        9. Trees on average sites are expected to be about twenty inches in diameter when they are eighty years old if they are managed properly since youth.

        10. Any amended declaration should be filed with the Internal Revenue Office with whom the original declaration was filed even if you move to another district.



Directions: Read this essay carefully paying special attention to passive voice verbs. Rewrite the essay by changing the passive verbs into active verbs and reconstructing the sentence where appropriate.
Technological civilization has reached its present "advanced" state by the trial-and-error behavior of those who lived before us. Many of the most useful discoveries and inventions were the result of mistakes when people were looking for something else. The New World was found by Columbus, who was really looking for India. The discovery of penicillin was speeded by somebody who left a loaf of bread out to get moldy. Think how far behind ourselves we’d be now if mistakes were impossible for us to make.

Our knowledge is also increased by our mistakes, if only because once a mistake has been made, a way of correcting it must be found. If the mistake had not been made by us in the first place, we might have had no reason to learn how things are done. As I wrote the first version of this essay, I made a few minor errors. As a result of my mistakes, since I did discover them, I learned the difference between continuous and continual; I learned that useful has only one “l” (and that the rule goes for hundreds of other words, like wasteful, harmful, spoonful); and I learned how to use a semicolon when a comma won’t do. Had I made no mistakes in the first place, I might have had a pretty good essay, but I would still not have known why.

Of course, mistakes have to be recognized for what they are. If Columbus had thought San Salvador was India and let things go at that, the world would be smaller today. Had the moldy bread been tossed to the birds, the birds might have become healthy while human life went on suffering from raging diseases. (I realize these statements are somewhat doubtful, but now I’m so curious about Columbus and penicillin that I’m going to learn the real facts tomorrow.)

Mistakes are made by computers, but only rarely by comparison with the human brain’s continual bumbling. Human beings, one might say, have emotions and desires and prejudices that mistakes are the result of. Those quirks are not things that computers have. Distractions and fatigue are suffered by human beings but not by computers. So it is possible to say that we are in a bit of danger. If the time should ever come when most of the world’s work is done by computers rather than by people, fewer mistakes will be made. Fewer mistakes will mean fewer of those useful discoveries and inventions brought about by the stumbling of the human species.



Adapted from the Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL)

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/





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