Mastering The Art of Active and Passive Voice in Writing

• Active Voice:

  • The subject performs the action of the verb
  • It is straightforward, direct, and often leads to more concise and engaging writing
  • Example: The dog catches the ball
• Passive Voice:

  • The subject of a sentence undergoes the action instead of performing it
  • The receiver of the action is emphasized rather than the performer
  • Formed by using a form of the auxiliary verb "to be" followed by the past participle of the main verb
  • Example: The ball is chased by the dog
• Five Steps in Transforming Active Voice to Passive Voice:

  1. Identify the elements (subject, verb, and object)

  2. Swap the position of the subject and object

  • Pronouns:
  • Subjective: I, He, She, We, They
  • Objective: Me, Him, Her, Us, Them

  3. Convert the verb1/verb 2 into verb3 (past participle)

  4. Add auxiliaries or helping verbs

  5. Add the preposition "by"
• Tense transformations from Active to Passive Voice:

  • Simple Present: write/writes -> is/are/am written
• Tense transformations from Active to Passive Voice

  • Present Continuous: is/are/am writing -> was/were being written
• Tense transformations from Active to Passive Voice

  • Present Perfect: have written -> have been written
• Tense transformations from Active to Passive Voice

  • Simple Past: wrote -> was/were written
• Tense transformations from Active to Passive Voice

  • Past Continuous: was/were writing -> was/were being written
• Tense transformations from Active to Passive Voice

  • Past Perfect: had written -> had been written
• Tense transformations from Active to Passive Voice

  • Simple Future: will write -> will be written
• Tense transformations from Active to Passive Voice

  • Future Perfect: will have written -> will have been written