Passive Voice Indicators. And how to avoid it in your manuscript. In the English language, there are two ways to construct a sentence: active voice and passive voice. Active voice. In active voice, the subject of the. You decide whether a change is necessary. The exception to the rule. Passive voice gets a bad rap, but it can. To change passive voice to active voice, it is necessary to figure out who is doing the action of the sentence. Although active voice is usually preferable to passive voice, there are a few. When to use the active and passive voice in your writing The active voice is more direct and vigorous than the passive. With the active voice, you learn ‘who’ or ‘what’ is responsible for the action at the beginning of the sentence. In other words, when the subject acts, the verb is active. She wrote the letter. With the passive voice, you either learn at the end of the clause or sentence who is responsible for the action or you aren’t told at all. The letter was written by the manager. The decision was made. The passive is appropriate: • For typical situations Robots are used for repetitive action. • To avoid direct responsibility A mistake was made. • When who performed the action of the verb isn’t known or is irrelevant The decision was made. • For emphasis The yellow car was destroyed by the bus. (not the blue car) How to identify the passive voice To identify the passive voice: • Find the verb and ask ‘who or what performed the action? – if the ‘who or what that performed the action’ is at the beginning of the sentence, the sentence is active • Look for the word by, which is often an indication of the passive. ( The action was performed by management.) • Look for extra verbs in the sentence structure – is found, are found, was found, were found, will be found, have been found, should be found. This won’t always work as the verb may be part of a verb tense ( We are making progress.) Change the passive into the active voice You can change the passive to the active by: • Changing the word order Passive: The memo was sent by the manager. Active: The manager sent the memo. • Supplying a ‘doer’ for the verb Passive: The method was ruled out. Active: The manager ruled out the method. • Replacing a passive verb with an active one Passive: The heated water is sent into the pipes. Active: The heated water flows into the pipes. Test yourself Are the following sentences active or passive? • The first meeting of the society was held in the blue room. • The project is expected to cost $70,000. • The decision was made by management. • A potential client liked our presentation. The first three are passive and the last one is active. The first three could be rewritten as: • The society held its first meeting in the blue room. • The engineer expected the project to cost $70,000. • Management made the decision. Learn more Read my blogs: • • Improve your grammar with Online Writing Training’s online. To my monthly e-newsletter to receive writing and grammar tips. Sentences written in the active voice are easier to understand than sentences written in the passive voice. Switching the passive voice into the active voice is straightforward, but it requires a bit of practice. Baby names of Many Different Languages. Offline J2ME baby Name Dictionary. English to hindi dictionary free download for mobile nokia 2690. Top 10 Dictionary & Translator Software for Nokia Beautiful Baby Names With English Meaning. Find Mean of name Get this. In the equivalency table below, notice that the tense of the verb to be in the passive voice is always the same as the tense of the main verb in the active voice. In order to use the active voice, you will have to make the subject of the action explicit. To Keep, active and passive voices Tense Active voice Passive voice Active sentence Passive equivalent Simple present keep is kept I keep the butter in the fridge. The butter is kept in the fridge. Present continuous is keeping is being kept John is keeping my house tidy. My house is being kept tidy. Simple past kept was kept Mary kept her schedule meticulously. Mary's schedule was kept meticulously. Past continuous was keeping was being kept The theater was keeping a seat for you. A seat was being kept for you. Present perfect have kept have been kept I have kept all your old letters. All your old letters have been kept.
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