ACTIVE AND PASSIVE VOICES

“ Voice” is a characteristic of verbs which indicates the relation of the verb’s action to its subject In other word, voice is the form a verb takes to indicate whether the subject of the verb performs or receives the action The voice of verb shows whether the sentence is active or passive. ACTIVE VOICES: Active voice verbs are used when an action is performed by the subject The active voice is used in making a straight forward statement about an action, i.e. the “doer” of the action is the subject of the sentence. DEFINITION

PASSIVE VOICES: Passive voice verbs are used in a sentence if an action was performed on the subject. In the passive voice, the “doer” of the action is not important, therefore, in a passive sentence the subject is often omitted. The omission may be because : a.The subject of the passive sentence is either unknown OR generally obvious to everyone. b.The subject is intentionally omitted due to some reasons (for examples: for a politician who need to remain the subject as a secret) However, when it is important to show the subject, a prepositional word “by” is used.

Although both constructions are grammatically correct, the active voice is usually more effective in academic and business writing because it is simpler and more direct. The passive construction is effective only when the doer of the action is unknown or irrelevant

During the world word the mistake was made. (Hiding the subject the writer hide the blame) Children were harmed by the drunk driver. (passive voice better emphasizes the main point of the message) It was reported that the leaking has occurred since a week ago. Mandiri Bank was robbed last night. (In these last two sentences, news writers protect sources this way. They also may not know who committed the action) EXAMPLES

Active: Subject + verb (type I) Passive: Subject + verb to be (is/am/are) + verb (type III) EXAMPLES: When the tickets are ready, the travel agent notifies the client. Then, each ticket is listed on a daily register form, and a copy of the itinerary is filed. We kill the pathogen with high temperature. The pathogen is killed with a high temperature. The worker collects the samples of the product using random design The samples of the product are collected using random design FORMULA FOR SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE

Active: Subject + verb (type II) Passive: Subject + verb to be (was/were) + verb (type III) EXAMPLES: When the tickets were ready, the travel agent notified the client. Then, each ticket was listed on a daily register form, and a copy of the itinerary was filed. We killed the pathogen with high temperature. The pathogen was killed with a high temperature. The worker collected the samples of the product using random design The samples of the product were collected using random design FORMULA FOR SIMPLE PAST TENSE

Active: Subject + will/ tobe going to + verb (type I) Passive: Subject + will be / tobe going to + be + verb (type III) EXAMPLES: When the tickets are ready, the travel agent will notify the client. Then, each ticket will be listed on a daily register form, and a copy of the itinerary will be filed. We are going to kill the pathogen with high temperature. The pathogen is going to be killed with a high temperature. The worker will collect the samples of the product using random design The samples of the product will be collected using random design FORMULA FOR SIMPLE FUTURE TENSE

Active : Subject + verb to be + verb (type I) + ing Passive:Subject + verb to be + being + verb (type III) EXAMPLES: The travel agent is notifying the client that the tickets are ready. Each ticket is being listed on a daily register form, and a copy of the itinerary is being filed. We are killing the pathogen with high temperature. The pathogen is being killed with a high temperature. The worker are collecting the samples of the product using random design The samples of the product are being collected using random design FORMULA FOR CONTINUOUS TENSE

Active:Subject + have/has/had + verb (type III) Passive:Subject + have/has/had + been + verb (type III) EXAMPLES: The travel agent has notified the client that the tickets are ready. Each ticket has been listed on a daily register form, and a copy of the itinerary has been filed. We have killed the pathogen with high temperature. The pathogen has been killed with a high temperature. The worker had collected the samples of the product using random design The samples of the product had been collected using random design FORMULA FOR PERFECT TENSE

The negation in passive voice is performed in the usual manner: by placing the word not after the verb to be (auxiliary verb). The interrogative form is performed by placing the verb to be at the beginning of a sentence followed by the subject and past participle (verb type III). Examples: The area was covered by smoke from bush fire. The area was not covered by smoke from bush fire. Was the area covered by smoke from bush fire? The new apple clones have been created via plant biotechnology. The new apple clones have not been created via plant biotechnology. Have the new apple clones been created via plant biotechnology? SENTENCE TRANSFORMATION