Active and Passive Voice English 2
Active Voice If you are active, you are doing something. In a sentence written in active voice, the subject of the sentence is doing the verb. Mrs. Olsen ate the Twix bar. The students wrote the paper. Arwen cleaned Zarina.
Passive Voice If you are passive, something is being done to you. In a sentence written in passive voice, the subject of the sentence is having the action of the verb done to it by something else. The Twix bar was eaten by Mrs. Olsen The paper was written by the students. Zarina was cleaned by Arwen.
Why does this matter? When you write sentences with active voice, you can use more interesting verbs and your writing seems to move more quickly (and you look more mature as a writer!) The cats raced around the house, jumping on chairs, performing acrobatic maneuvers as they ran towards the food dish. In the sentence above, the focus is on the action of the cats. The house was raced around by the cats, chairs were jumped on, acrobatic maneuvers were performed as the food dish was run towards. In the sentence above, the focus is on the objects, not the actions.
Practice #1 The swings were broken by the teenagers, but now they are fixed. The puppy tore at the stuffed animal until it got the squeaker out. That painting was painted by one of my students. That race car was driven by Mario Andretti. We swam in the pool all afternoon. That book was written by my favorite author. We roasted marshmallows over the fire in the fireplace. We have camped in the forest with our friends.
Practice #2 For the five passive sentences from Practice Part #1, re-write them into active voice. The swings were broken by the teenagers, but now they are fixed. That painting was painted by one of my students. That race car was driven by Mario Andretti. That book was written by my favorite author. We have camped in the forest with our friends.
List of Helping Verbs am are, is, was, were, be, being, been have, has, had shall, will do, does, did may, must, might can, could, would, should