PASSIVE VOICE
Passive Voice
What is the passive voice?
In general we tend to use the active voice. That is when a subject does an action to an object.
■ Definition of Passive Voice
A passive voice is a type of a clause or sentence in which an action (through verb), or an object of a sentence, is emphasized rather than its subject. Simply, the subject receives the action of the verb. The emphasis or focus is on the action, while the subject is not known or is less important.
■ Example
Somebody stole my laptop. (subject = Somebody / action(verb) = stole / object = my laptop)
The passive voice is used when we want to emphasize the action (the verb) and the object of a sentence rather than subject. This means that the subject is either less important than the action itself or that we don’t know who or what the subject is.
My laptop was stolen. (The object – now the subject = My laptop / action= was stolen)
Passive: Napa Valley is known for its excellent wines.
Active: [Many people] know Napa Valley for its excellent wines.
Passive: Twenty civilians were killed in the bomb explosion.
Active: Someone killed twenty civilians in the bomb explosion.
The passive agent
When we know who the subject is, we put it at the end with by. We call this an agent.
Passive: The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci. (agent =Leonardo Da Vinci )
Active: Leonaro Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa.
Most writing instructors and editors recommend against using the passive voice, when possible. The reason for this is that when you use the active voice, your writing is clearer and less complicated.
Active: While Mr. Taylor was driving down Highway 101, a police officer pulled him over and gave him a speeding ticket.
Passive: While Mr. Taylor was driving down Highway 101, he was pulled over and given a ticket by a police officer.
If it’s a long sentence and you know who the subject is, it’s best to use the active voice.
The passive is often used to report something or to state a fact.
Highway 15 was closed yesterday due to a serious road accident.
A lot of corn is grown in Iowa.
Forming the passive voice
■ The passive voice is not a tense in English. Each tense has its own passive voice which is created by using a form of the auxiliary verb to be + V3 (past participle )
■ The difference between active and passive voice
While tense is all about time references, voice describes whether the grammatical subject of a clause performs or receives the action of the verb. Here’s the formula for the active voice: [subject]+[verb (performed by the subject)]+[optional object]
Chester kicked the ball.
In a passive voice construction, the grammatical subject of the clause receives the action of the verb. So, the ball from the above sentence, which is receiving the action, becomes the subject. The formula: [subject]+[some form of the verb to be]+[past participle of a transitive verb]+[optional prepositional phrase]
The ball was kicked by Chester.
That last little bit—“by Chester”—is a prepositional phrase that tells you who the performer of the action is. But even though Chester is the one doing the kicking, he’s no longer the grammatical subject. A passive voice construction can even drop him from the sentence entirely:
The ball was kicked.
How’s that for anticlimactic?
When (and when not) to use the passive voice
If you’re writing anything with a definitive subject who’s performing an action, you’ll be better off using the active voice. And if you search your document for instances of was, is, or were and your page lights up with instances of passive voice, it may be a good idea to switch to active voice.
That said, there are times when the passive voice does a better job of presenting an idea, especially in certain formal, professional, and legal discussions. Here are three common uses of the passive voice:
1 Reports of crimes or incidents with unknown perpetrators
My car was stolen yesterday.
If you knew who stole the car, it probably wouldn’t be as big a problem. The passive voice emphasizes the stolen item and the action of theft.
2 Scientific contexts
The rat was placed into a T-shaped maze.
Who places the rat into the maze? Scientists, duh. But that’s less important than the experiment they’re conducting. Therefore, passive voice.
3 When you want to emphasize an action itself and the doer of the action is irrelevant or distracting:
The president was sworn in on a cold January morning.
How many people can remember off the top of their heads who swears in presidents? Clearly the occasion of swearing in the commander in chief is the thing to emphasize here. In each of the above contexts, the action itself—or the person or thing receiving the action—is the part that matters. That means the performer of the action can appear in a prepositional phrase or be absent from the sentence altogether.
■ When passive voice isn’t passive voice
Deciding when to use the passive voice can be tricky. Identifying it can be even trickier.
Chester’s favorite activity is kicking. The bank robbery took place just before closing time. There is nothing we can do about it. There were a great number of dead leaves covering the ground.
Despite what any well-meaning English teachers may have told you, none of the sentences above are written in the passive voice. The sentence about the leaves, in fact, was (wrongly) presented as an example of the passive voice by none other than Strunk and White in The Elements of Style. Here’s how to remember: using the verb to be doesn’t automatically put a verb phrase into the passive voice. You also need a past participle. That’s how to keep passive voice masqueraders from fooling you.
Next This is song Just give me A reason
From the song that I find a passive voice
1. It's been written in the scars on our hearts
2. You're still written in the scars on my heart
3. And with every touch you fixed them
Next I will explain with detail passive voice
TENSES RUMUS PASSIVE VOICE
Simple present subject + is/am/are + Verb 3
Present continuous subject + is/am/are + being + Verb 3
Present perfect subject + have/has been + Verb 3
Simple past subject + was/were + Verb 3
Past continuous subject + was/were + being + Verb 3
Past perfect subject + had been + Verb 3
Simple future subject + will be + Verb 3
Be going to subject + is/am/are + going to + be + Verb 3
Future perfect subject + will have been + Verb 3
Modal Subject + modal + be + Verb 3
Next look at the example in below
And this is the link to video about passive voice:
The gist is summed up here:
● The passive voice isn’t a grammatical error; it’s a matter of style
Use the active voice if it makes your sentence sound clearer and more natural
Forming passive voice requires the verb “to be” and a past participle
The passive voice is your friend when the thing receiving an action is the important part of the sentence—especially in scientific and legal contexts, times when the performer of an action is unknown, or cases where the subject is distracting or irrelevant
When it comes to good writing, don’t be passive—even if your sentences sometimes need to be
Use Grammarly to help you find instances of passive voice
Comments
Post a Comment