Active/Passive Voice

E.G. Gammon · Apr 29, 2005

Today, I stumbled upon some of my old English notebooks from high school while I was doing some cleaning and I saw some work with active and passive voice. I remembered that back in high school, I had trouble with differentiating the two. Can anyone help me understand the differences? I looked in an old grammar book I accidentally kept from my high school days, but the only thing in there was a small paragraph with no examples at all. Thanks to anyone who helps.

maestrowork · Apr 29, 2005

He sang a song -- active voice.
A song was sung -- passive voice.

Someone pushed me down the stairs -- active voice.
I was pushed down the stairs -- passive voice.

The boss assembled a team to address the issue. They solved the problem -- active voice.
A team was assembled to address the issue. The problem was solved. -- passive voice.

A writer should use active voice to write fiction -- active voice.
Academic and technical documents are usually written in passive voice -- passive voice.

Oh, Lord. I used to write a lot of technical documents, thus using passive voice a lot. Now, I have to actually think hard to write a sentence in active voice. Writing fiction has tinted me!!!

tjwriter · Apr 29, 2005

Okay, here is what The Basics by Buscemi, Nicolai, and Strugala has to say:

There are four reasons to prefer active over passive voice:

1. The active voice is more direct.

Examples:
Active voice: The scientist completed the experiment.
The subject, scientist, does the action.
Passive voice: The experiment was completed by the scientist.
The subject, experiment, receives the action.

2. The active voice usually produces a smoother and more natural sentence structure.

Examples:
Active voice: Several students from my high school graduating class chose to enter the military rather than to attend college.
Passive voice: Entering the military rather that attending college was chosen by several students from my high school graduating class.

3. Using the passive voice sometimes creates a dangling or misplaced modifier problem.

Examples:
Active voice: Voting overwhelmingly for Proposition 227, Californians decreased support for bilingual education in public schools.
Passive voice: Voting overwhelmingly for Proposition 227, support for bilingual education was significantly decreased in California.

4. Using the passive voice sometimes results in forgetting to mention the doer of an action, thereby leaving out important information.

Passive voice: The mayor was criticized for being insensitive to the problems of the poor.
Active voice: The mayor's political opponents criticized her for being insensitive to the problems of the poor.

OR

Active voice: The newspaper editorial criticized the mayor for being insensitive to the problems of the poor.

The exceptions are:

When the agent (doer of an action) is unknown or nonexistent.
When the action is more important than the agent or when the agent is obvious.
When using the passive voice makes the sentence more natural or shorter.

I hope this helps.

katee · Apr 29, 2005

I think it's also helpful to know how to recognise passive voice, for editing.

In English (hopefully it's a safe assumption that this is the language you're writing in!), passive voice can be recognised by the use of the very "to be" plus the past participle of the verb. Another good indicator is the use of "by".

I played a game = active voice
I was playing a game = active voice because was +ing not was +ed
The game was played by me = passive voice, was +ed
The game could have been played = passive voice, could have been +ed

Of course, not all English verbs make their past participle by adding ed, but hopefully once you get used to looking for the pattern it will be a piece of cake.

Winston Smith · Apr 29, 2005

Don't feel bad...

I teach high school English, and much of what the passive voice means in writing is innuendo. Most students do not understand the nuance between active and passive. I've been writing for years, and have taught for nearly 10, and trying to explain the difference in a way students can use is difficult.

Active: I teach English
Passive: English is taught by me.

Jamesaritchie · Apr 29, 2005

Active/passive

EGGammon said:
Today, I stumbled upon some of my old English notebooks from high school while I was doing some cleaning and I saw some work with active and passive voice. I remembered that back in high school, I had trouble with differentiating the two. Can anyone help me understand the differences? I looked in an old grammar book I accidentally kept from my high school days, but the only thing in there was a small paragraph with no examples at all. Thanks to anyone who helps.

If you can identiofy the subject of the sentence, active/passive usually becomes much easier. If the action is being done to the subject, it's passive, if the subject is causing the action, it's active.

maestrowork · Apr 29, 2005

There are times when you want to use passive voice, as outlined by tjwriter. Passive voice makes the action, well, passive, and also shifts the focus to the person/thing acted on:

I was surprised by her generosity.

In many cases the sentence above would sound better than:

Her generosity surprised me.

Sometimes passive voice is not that "visible" with the "to be," especially in complex sentences with mixed voices:

She fidgeted, trapped by her fear of crowds.

Trapped inside the elevator, she paced back and forth.

She jumped, surprised by the loud noise.

Deleted member 42 · Apr 29, 2005

maestrowork said:
Sometimes passive voice is not that "visible" with the "to be," especially in complex sentences with mixed voices:

She fidgeted, trapped by her fear of crowds.

Trapped inside the elevator, she paced back and forth.

She jumped, surprised by the loud noise.

Maybe I'm missing your point; these last three are examples of intransitive verbs, and not passive voice.

maestrowork · Apr 29, 2005

What intransitive verbs?

If you take away the active clause, you will get:

She jumped. She was surprised by the loud noise. (as opposed to A loud noise surprised her, and she jumped.)

Is that not passive?

reph · Apr 29, 2005

Medievalist said:
Maybe I'm missing your point; these last three are examples of intransitive verbs, and not passive voice.

"She fidgeted, trapped by her fear of crowds."

I call "trapped" a participial adjective, not a passive verb. Sure, you can say "She was trapped by her fear of crowds," and then "was trapped" is a verb in passive voice, but you didn't say that in the "fidgeted" sentence.

Compare "She fidgeted, afraid she'd flunked the test" or "She fidgeted, thinking she'd left the door unlocked." "Afraid..." and "thinking..." are adjective clauses that modify "she." So is "trapped...crowds." No, it's a phrase, not a clause, but it does the same job in the structure of the sentence that those clauses do.

tjwriter · Apr 29, 2005

tjwriter said:
The exceptions are:

When the agent (doer of an action) is unknown or nonexistent.

When the action is more important than the agent or when the agent is obvious.

When using the passive voice makes the sentence more natural or shorter.

I left out examples for these but here they are:

For the first one

Not: Someone abandoned an infant on the church steps.
But: The infant was abandoned on the church steps.

Not: No one can repair the computer.
But: The computer cannot be repaired.

For the second one

Not: The government repealed the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, the "Prohibition Amendment", in 1933, when it passed the 21st Amendment.
But: The 18th Amendment to the Constitution, the "Prohibition Amendment", was repealed in 1933, when the 21st Amendment was passesd.

For the third one

Not: The Turkish city of Istanbul once had the name Constantinople.
But: The Turkish city of Istanbul was once called Constantinople.

Deleted member 42 · Apr 29, 2005

maestrowork said:
What intransitive verbs?

If you take away the active clause, you will get:

She jumped. She was surprised by the loud noise. (as opposed to A loud noise surprised her, and she jumped.)

Is that not passive?

No; you must have all three of these to have passive voice:

1. Main verb in past tense
2. Helping verb; usually a form of "be" but have is possible in earlier forms of English, as is "get." (In modern English, it's going to be a form of be, 99.9 percent of the time. Maybe always.)
3. The grammatical subject functions as the object of the verb/action, and receives the "effect" of the verb.

She was surprised by the loud noise. Passive voice. You've got the subject buried in a prepositional phrase, and the main verbe, surprised in past tense, and a helping verb "was" that's a form of passive voice.

A loud noise surprised her, and she jumped. Not passive voice. The grammatical subject is clear; a loud voice. You have the main verb, surprised in the past tense, but no helping verb.

maestrowork · Apr 29, 2005

Yes, that's what I mean, the first one is passive, but the second is active (I was trying to illustrate the same sentence written in either voice).

But here:

She jumped, surprised by a loud noise... the "to be" is implied as in She jumped because she was surprised by a loud noise.

So in my original example, the clause "surprised by a loud noise" is considered passive?

Deleted member 42 · Apr 29, 2005

Here's a handout about passive voice--it's not meant for this particular audience, so for heaven's sake don't feel like I'm dumbing down. It's not really designed for y'all.

Verbs are words of action (run, jump, think, speak, eat, laugh, love, sing).
Voice describes the form a verb takes depending on whether the subject of the verb acts or is acted upon. If the subject of the verb performs the action, the verb is in active voice. If the subject of the verb receives the action, then the verb is in passive voice.

Active voice: Jane Austen wrote Northanger Abbey.
Passive voice: Northanger Abbey was written by Jane Austen.

Normally the person or thing who performs the action of the verb is a noun or noun phrase. In a sentence that uses passive voice, you can't tell who or what specifically performed the action of the verb. You just know that it happened. The subject may be buried in a prepositional phrase (by Jane Austen)

Passive voice: The ball was kicked.
• You can't tell who “did” the kicking.

Active voice: John kicked the ball.
• John “did” the “kicking.”
John is the grammatical subject of the sentence.

You can think of passive voice as an equation, or a recipe, if you like:

Passive voice = was, is, being, or has been + a verb in the past tense

• You always have a form of “be” in a sentence in passive voice (was, is, being, or has been).

• The be verb is always followed by a verb in the past tense.

• You can't tell from the sentence who “did” the action of the verb.

Passive voice, in and of itself, is not evil. It's often very useful, particularly in writing in the sciences or social sciences, where quite often the writer truly doesn't know who is responsible for an action.

• You might want to use passive voice to emphasize an action or the recipient of that action, rather than the “doer.”

Driving tests are given to all employees.

• Sometimes you want to “soften” bad news.

Your watch can not be repaired under warranty.

• Sometimes you want to avoid responsibility.

An error was made on your tax return.

But in other sorts of writing passive voice sounds like you are not sure of yourself, and thus weakens your argument. Unless you have a good reason to use passive voice, avoid it. Revise sentences in which you do not explicitly state who is doing what to whom so that you have strong declarative statements built around an active verb.

reph · Apr 29, 2005

Medievalist said:
No; you must have all three of these to have passive voice:

1. Main verb in past tense

The past participle.

see, saw, seen
write, wrote, written

Hats with feathers are rarely seen these days.

The book was written in 1980.

reph · Apr 29, 2005

maestrowork said:
But here:

She jumped, surprised by a loud noise... the "to be" is implied as in She jumped because she was surprised by a loud noise.

So in my original example, the clause "surprised by a loud noise" is considered passive?

No, it's neither passive nor active. It isn't a clause at all. Look at my earlier post.

Deleted member 42 · Apr 29, 2005

I often use this anecdote to illustrate passive voice.

You're playing ball; the ball breaks the neighbor's window. Depending on your age and your relationship with your parents, you might say:

The window was broken.

It isn't clear who or what broke the window. There's a good verb there, broken, the past tense of break.

There's a helping verb there as well, a form of be, was. Thata's two of the three ingredients for passive voice.

The third ingredient? Is the grammatical subject of the verb, the "doer" clear?

No; the window apparently spontaneously broke. You didn't do it, it umm, just happened . . .

Passive voice is useful when you either want to mask the "doer," or you aren't clear who, or what, initiated or performed the action of the verb.

I have a great Life in Hell cartoon showing a trembling rabbit, crouched before a giant throne. The caption reads:

"Mistakes may have been made."

Passive voice, plus the subjunctive (may)! What a way to avoid responsibility!

maestrowork · Apr 29, 2005

OK, we know what the simple passive/active voices are. But again, let me give you a complex sentence:

The book A Time To Kill, written in 1992 by John Grisham, shares striking similarities with To Kill a Mockingbird.

What would you call "written in 1992 by John Grisham"? Participial adjective? I think it's when we write in complex sentences that the passive/active voice thing gets murky. I mean, if you say, don't write passive voice, is the above sentence active? I'd say yes, because the main clause is "The book shares striking similiarities with...."

That's why English is so confusing!

The book A Time To Kill -- it was written in 1992 by John Grisham -- shares striking similarities with To Kill a Mockingbird.

To rewrite that in totally active voice, one can do:

John Grisham wrote A Time To Kill, which shares striking similarities with To Kill a Mockingbird,in 1992.

But the emphasis of these two sentences are now different, I believe...

Deleted member 42 · Apr 29, 2005

maestrowork said:
But here:

She jumped, surprised by a loud noise... the "to be" is implied as in She jumped because she was surprised by a loud noise.

So in my original example, the clause "surprised by a loud noise" is considered passive?

First, it's not a clause. A clause is a group of related words that includes a subject and a predicate (predicate is traditional grammer terminology; Chomsyites call it a main verb.)

Secondly, no, it's not passive voice; there's no "understood" in passive voice, it's purely determined by the words that are present. I bet Reph is answering this too . . .

Deleted member 42 · Apr 29, 2005

maestrowork said:
OK, we know what the simple passive/active voices are. But again, let me give you a complex sentence:

Wait a second--do you mean "complex" versus compound, or complex as in complicated?

The book A Time To Kill, written in 1992 by John Grisham, shares striking similarities with

To Kill a Mockingbird.

What would you call "written in 1992 by John Grisham"? Participial adjective? I think it's when we write in complex sentences that the passive/active voice thing gets murky. I mean, if you say, don't write passive voice, is the above sentence active? I'd say yes, because the main clause is "The book shares striking similiarities with...."

It's a adjectival prepositional phrase. Or you could call it an appostive, in traditional grammar. It modifies, describes, and refers back to the nominal, the subject The book . . ."

But you note there's no helping verb, no form of be, so it's not passive voice.

That's why English is so confusing!

Nah, English is confusing because in 1066 the Normans screwed it up

To rewrite that in totally active voice, one can do:

John Grisham wrote A Time To Kill, which shares striking similarities with To Kill a Mockingbird,in 1992.

But the emphasis of these two sentences are now different, I believe...

Yes, it is different, but not because of active or passive voice, but because of direct and indirect structure and syntax. Passive refers, in terms of grammar and linguistics, to passive voice, and that requires all three ingredients; unclear subject or "doer", main verb in the past tense (past participle), and a helping verb that's usually a form of "be".

reph · Apr 29, 2005

maestrowork said:
OK, we know what the simple passive/active voices are. But again, let me give you a complex sentence:

The book A Time To Kill, written in 1992 by John Grisham, shares striking similarities with To Kill a Mockingbird.

What would you call "written in 1992 by John Grisham"? Participial adjective?

Ray, that's not a complex sentence! It's a simple sentence with a participial adjectival phrase modifying the subject.

It's equivalent to this one: "Written in 1992 by John Grisham, the book A Time to Kill shares [etc.]," in which it's easier to see that "written in 1992 by JG" isn't a clause, only a modifier.

And "shares similarities" is partly redundant, but let's not start on that. We have enough to deal with right here.

maestrowork · Apr 29, 2005

Now how about:

The Book A Time to Kill, which was written by John Grisham in 1992, shares striking similarities with To Kill a Mockingbird.

vs.

The Book A Time to kill, which John Grisham wrote in 1992, shares striking similarities with To Kill a Mockingbird.

I think w're totally confusing EGGammon now.

And guys, I'm just throwing all this at the drop of a hat. I'm no linguist or grammatist so you don't have to keep correcting my use of terms like "complex" vs. "compound" or "clause" vs. "whatever"

My point is (after we get high tossing all these terminologies) it is easy to spot passive/active in simple sentences. But once you deal with compound sentences, it gets more difficult. I can't get this clause, modifier, participial adjective, blah blah blah straight.

The difference between "she jumped, surprised by a loud noise" and "she jumped, and was surprised by a loud noise" is not always easy.

I'm like one of these software power users. I know how to use them, I just don't know what they're called...

reph · Apr 29, 2005

Medievalist said:
Wait a second--do you mean "complex" versus compound, or complex as in complicated?

I tried to take care of that for him.

It's a adjectival prepositional phrase. Or you could call it an appostive, in traditional grammar.

It's not a prepositional phrase, although it contains two prepositional phrases.

I've been told (rather sharply) on another language-connected message board that nothing but a noun or a noun phrase can be an appositive. I can't swear to the expertise of the poster who told me, but I can't swear to my own expertise about terminology, either. I've been out of school too long. However, I do know a phrase from a clause.

Deleted member 42 · Apr 29, 2005

maestrowork said:
Now how about:

The Book A Time to Kill, which was written by John Grisham in 1992, shares striking similarities with To Kill a Mockingbird.

Dude that is totally passive voice! You've got it--the verb or past participle is written, there's a helping verb that's a form of be, was, and the subject of written, the person doing the writing, is unclear, buried in a prepositional phrase.

You are now ready to be a social scientist.

vs.

The Book A Time to kill, which John Grisham wrote in 1992, shares striking similarities with To Kill a Mockingbird.

Gah. John Grisham's A Time to Kill (1992) shares striking similarities with To Kill a Mockingbird.

There's still more to do there, but the problem wasn't that the sentence was using passive voice, because it wasn't. But it's got a wimpy relative pronoun, and too many prepositional phrases, making it wimpy.

Waddya mean wimpy isn't accepted as a technical term . . .

reph · Apr 29, 2005

maestrowork said:
Now how about:

The Book A Time to Kill, which was written by John Grisham in 1992, shares striking similarities with To Kill a Mockingbird.

vs.

The Book A Time to kill, which John Grisham wrote in 1992, shares striking similarities with To Kill a Mockingbird.

...I'm no linguist or grammatist so you don't have to keep correcting my use of terms like "complex" vs. "compound" or "clause" vs. "whatever"...I can't get this clause, modifier, participial adjective, blah blah blah straight.

There's a reason for getting clear about what's a phrase and what's a clause: The original question concerned active and passive voice. Only in a clause can the verb have either one. If you ask "Is this verb active or passive?" while pointing to a verb in a participial phrase, there's no answer.

Active/Passive Voice

E.G. Gammon

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

tjwriter

Emerging Anew

katee

Winston Smith

Jamesaritchie

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

Deleted member 42

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

reph

Fig of authority

tjwriter

Emerging Anew

Deleted member 42

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

Deleted member 42

reph

Fig of authority

reph

Fig of authority

Deleted member 42

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

Deleted member 42

Deleted member 42

reph

Fig of authority

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

reph

Fig of authority

Deleted member 42

reph

Fig of authority