Passive Voice About as good for your writing as passive aggressive behavior will be for your relationships. source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Discuss: What do you think PASSIVE VOICE is Discuss: What do you think PASSIVE VOICE is? Why might we need to talk about it now?

A passive construction occurs when you make the object of an action into the subject of a sentence. Active: Why did the chicken cross the road? Passive: Why was the road crossed by the chicken? Who is doing the action in this sentence? The chicken is the one doing the action in this sentence, but the chicken is not in the spot where you would expect the grammatical subject to be. Instead, the road is the grammatical subject. The more familiar phrasing (why did the chicken cross the road?) puts the chicken (the actor/doer) in the subject position, the position of doing something—the chicken (the actor/doer) crosses the road (the object).

Spotting Passive Constructions Look for a form of "to be" (is, are, am , was, were, has been, have been, had been, will be, will have been, being) followed by a past participle. The past participle is a form of the verb that typically, but not always, ends in "-ed." Some exceptions to the "-ed" rule are words like "paid" (not "payed") and "driven." (not "drived"). For example: Scotland has been damaged by Macbeth’s totalitarian cruelty. The totalitarian cruelty damaged the city.

Why do we care about Passive Voice? The primary reason why your instructors frown on the passive voice is that they often have to guess what you mean. Like many passive constructions, this sentence lacks explicit reference to the actor—it doesn't tell the reader who or what took Blythe’s chicken. The active voice clarifies things: When her chicken was taken, Blythe cried. After border guards took Blythe’s chicken, she cried.

Compare the following two examples: (passive) Blood imagery was used in the play to symbolize guilt… (By whom?) (active) Shakespeare uses blood imagery in the play to symbolize guilt... Avoid Passive voice to assure you’ve specified who or what is doing the action in your sentence.

LA + Passive Voice= Usually Bad  Passive Voice: LA vs SS LA + Passive Voice= Usually Bad  SS + Passive Voice = Sometimes Good 

Discuss: Make these passive sentences active Discuss: Make these passive sentences active. You may need to add information to the sentence. Hand imagery is used to show Macbeth’s guilt over his murderous actions. The night is personified as being blind, affording safe passage for malcontents. Lady Macduff is described as a bird, revealing her frailty and foreshadowing her demise.

Sometimes the passive voice is the best choice. Here are a few instances when the passive voice is quite useful: 1. To emphasize an object. Take a look at this example: 100 votes are required to pass the bill. This passive sentence emphasizes the number of votes required. An active version of the sentence ("The bill requires 100 votes to pass") would put the emphasis on the bill, which may be less dramatic. Sometimes the passive voice is the best choice.

Over 120 different contaminants have been dumped into the river. 2. To de-emphasize an unknown subject/actor. Over 120 different contaminants have been dumped into the river. If you don't know who the actor is—in this case, if you don't actually know who dumped all of those contaminants in the river—then you may need to write in the passive. But remember, if you do know the actor, and if the clarity and meaning of your writing would benefit from indicating him/her/it/them, then use an active construction.

3. If your readers don't need to know who's responsible for the action. Here's where your choice can be difficult; some instances are less clear than others. Try to put yourself in your reader's position to anticipate how he/she will react to the way you have phrased your thoughts. Here are two examples: Baby Sophia was delivered at 3:30 a.m. yesterday.(passive) and Dr. Susan Jones delivered baby Sophia at 3:30 a.m. yesterday. (active)

LA + Passive Voice= Usually Bad  Passive Voice: LA vs SS LA + Passive Voice= Usually Bad  SS + Passive Voice = Sometimes Good 

In Macbeth, the gender roles were reversed. The message being conveyed in this quote is that Lady Macbeth will do anything for power. Imagery of hands is also used to show that Lady Macbeth seeks to rid herself of guilt. The part of him full of guilt is shown when he hallucinates Banquo’s ghost. From the early scenes, blood imagery is shown to the reader. At the beginning of Macbeth, deception is used to gain the trust of King Duncan. The decisions Lady Macbeth and her husband make often are lamented.