ACTIVE VOICE VS.PASSIVE HOW TO

To change this type of passive voice to an active sentence, remove the verb to be and change the verb form to agree with the subject. Passive Voice: The apples were sold all day.Īctive Voice: The farmer (subject) sold the apples all day.Ĭonjugation and Past Participle: Sentences written in passive voice include a conjugated form of to be followed by the past participle form of the main verb. If the subject or “doer” of the action is not identified, rewrite the sentence with it positioned before the main verb. Missing Subject: The grammatical subject of the sentence is often omitted in passive voice. Passive Voice: A letter (object) was written by him (subject) to his family.Īctive Voice: He (subject) wrote a letter (object) to his family. Switching the position of the object and subject will change the sentence to active voice. Position of subject and object: The position of the subject and the object in a passive sentence are often switched, with the object placed before the verb and the subject placed after. To change a sentence from passive to active, first determine what makes the sentence passive, and then apply one of the following rules:

ACTIVE VOICE VS.PASSIVE HOW TO

How to change passive voice to active voice Passive Voice: The entire cake was eaten (past participle) by himself. The verb form can determine if a sentence is active or passive.Īctive Voice: He ate (past tense verb) the entire cake by himself. Passive Voice: The fire was extinguished in less than an hour. The subject does not need to be directly identified when using passive voice. Passive Voice: The fence (object) was jumped over by the dog (subject). Interchanging the object and subject determines if a sentence is active or passive.Īctive Voice: The dog (subject) jumped over the fence (object). Passive Voice: object + to be + past participle verb + subject (optional)

The placement of the subject, verb, and object determines if a sentence is active or passive. General rules for active and passive voice include the following: The museum is visited each year by hundreds of tourists. The confused customer was helped at the store. The letters were delivered by her yesterday.Īt least two new employees will be hired by the company. Hundreds of tourists visit the museum each year.īelow are examples of sentences written with a passive voice: The salesman helped the confused customer at the store.

The company will hire at least two new employees. The following are examples of active voice sentences: passive voice examplesīelow are two lists of example sentences written in both the active and passive voice. Passive voice emphasizes the action or the object within a sentence, limiting the importance of the subject. passive voiceĪctive voice helps writers present their information clearly and concisely. Passive voice sentences often contain a preposition or prepositional phrase, like by. These verbs typically end in -ed, -d, -en, or -t. Past participle refers to an action that was started and completed in the past. Sentences in the passive voice contain a conjugated form of the verb to be (is, was, has been, will be, etc.) and the past participle form of a verb.

Active voice vs.passive