How to recognise that the sentence is in active or passive voice?
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The active voice is more direct and vigorous than the passive.
With the active voice, you learn ‘who’ or ‘what’ is responsible for the action at the beginning of the sentence. In other words, when the subject acts, the verb is active.
• She wrote the letter.
With the passive voice, you either learn at the end of the clause or sentence who is responsible for the action or you aren’t told at all.
• The letter was written by the manager.
• The decision was made.
The passive is appropriate:
• For typical situations
e.g. Robots are used for repetitive action.
• To avoid direct responsibility
e.g. A mistake was made.
• When who performed the action of the verb isn’t known or is irrelevant
e.g. The decision was made.
• For emphasis
e.g. The yellow car was destroyed by the bus. (not the blue car)
To identify the passive voice:
• Find the verb and ask ‘who or what performed the action? – if the ‘who or what that performed the action’ is at the beginning of the sentence, the sentence is active
• Look for the word by, which is often an indication of the passive. (The action was performed by management.)
• Look for extra verbs in the sentence structure – is found, are found, was found, were found, will be found, have been found, should be found. This won’t always work as the verb may be part of a verb tense (We are making progress.)
With the active voice, you learn ‘who’ or ‘what’ is responsible for the action at the beginning of the sentence. In other words, when the subject acts, the verb is active.
• She wrote the letter.
With the passive voice, you either learn at the end of the clause or sentence who is responsible for the action or you aren’t told at all.
• The letter was written by the manager.
• The decision was made.
The passive is appropriate:
• For typical situations
e.g. Robots are used for repetitive action.
• To avoid direct responsibility
e.g. A mistake was made.
• When who performed the action of the verb isn’t known or is irrelevant
e.g. The decision was made.
• For emphasis
e.g. The yellow car was destroyed by the bus. (not the blue car)
To identify the passive voice:
• Find the verb and ask ‘who or what performed the action? – if the ‘who or what that performed the action’ is at the beginning of the sentence, the sentence is active
• Look for the word by, which is often an indication of the passive. (The action was performed by management.)
• Look for extra verbs in the sentence structure – is found, are found, was found, were found, will be found, have been found, should be found. This won’t always work as the verb may be part of a verb tense (We are making progress.)
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