Passive Construction…A Brief Review
Editors like active voice sentence construction. Your editor may send you a comment to, “Change passive construction to active where appropriate.”
To comply, we need a little understanding about passive construction. Clearly, even the first time visitor will recognize I’m not a grammar, writing, or style expert. So, I’ve conjured some credible sources to speak in my place.
What’s active vs. passive construction? This definition by Trent Lorcher at Brighthub.com seems pretty tight and clear…
Active voice is the voice used to indicate that the subject of the sentence is performing the action or causing the action.
Passive voice is the voice used when the subject is the recipient of the action.
Passive Voice Examples
From the You Dictionary web site.
When a sentence is in active voice, the subject doing the action comes before the action. For example:
- I swim.
- I is the subject. Swim is the action. The subject doing the action comes before the action, so it is immediately clear to the reader who is doing what.
When a sentence is in passive voice, the subject comes after the action. For example:
- Swimming is something I do.
- Here, the action is swimming. The subject is I. The sentence is in passive voice, since the person doing the action (I) is not mentioned until after the action
Some sentences also contain objects– the thing being acted upon. For example, here’s a sentence in active voice:
- Anna hits the ball.
- Anna is the subject. Hits is the action. The ball is the object.
That same sentence in passive voice reads:
- The ball is hit by Anna.
- Here, we need to recognize that the ball is the object- not the subject of the sentence. The ball is not doing an action. Therefore, it should be after the subject (Anna), not before, as in this case.
- Kindley adds: Any sentence that contains, “Such and such was done BY anyone/anything” is passive. My teacher called this the, “By George” syndrome.
More Passive Voice Examples
These examples are from About.com
In active voice, the subject is performing the action (doing the verb). In the following sentences the verbs are in active voice.
Rob hit the baseball pretty hard.
John broke my favorite dish.
Laura took my beach towel.
Stephanie ate the entire pie.
Below, notice that the subject is not acting; instead the subject is acted upon. These sentences are in passive voice.
The baseball was hit pretty hard.
My favorite dish was broken by John.
My beach towel was taken.
The entire pie was eaten by Stephanie.
The verbs below are in passive voice. Each is preceded by “was,” which is a form of “to be.” One way to recognize passive voice is to look for a form of “be” preceding the verb—followed by an “en” or “ed” ending.
The pickle was eaten. (Or an ed ending)
The pickle is eaten.
The pickle will be eaten.
The pickle has been eaten.
The pickle had been eaten.
The pickle will have been eaten.
The sentences above all make it clear that a pickle is, was, or will be eaten—but we can’t tell from who is actually eating. Therefore, passive.
Friday, we’ll look at examples of how to change passive to active. We’ll see there are two methods…
First Method: Place the agent before the verb
Second Method: Cut out as much of the passive verb as possible.
We’ll also review cases when it’s appropriate to use passive voice.
Drop back by if you get the chance. By the way, these posts are not intended to be preachy or condescending…just intended as a review. I acknowledge you’re sharp writers with no need for assistance or lessons—especially from me. I’m just trying to provide some review and refresher, as well as learn something myself. Thanks.
Themocracy
We all can use a review and you’ve done well with your examples, here. Thanks for the reminder and I’ll check back in for the correction to active voice.
Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder
This is one of my weak areas so I’m always happy to read more on the topic and look forward to Friday’s refresher, as well.
Galen, were you an English teacher in a former life? I better study so I can ace the quiz.
Thank you Galen for such excellent examples. I try my best, but a reminder is always welcome! Back to the manuscript I go.
Elspeth
Reviewing is never a bad thing, Galen. Don’t apologize. This is good stuff, and passive versus active is one of the banes of my existence. I need as much practice with them as possible, so feel free to keep these coming. Oh, and nice reference from Trent Lorcher. I’m an editor on Brighthub.com (in a different area, of course) and I like reading his stuff. Nice to see though that the word is getting out about our content.
Definitely good advice. My approach is to target the linking verbs and get rid of them whereever possible. We had to memorize 64 or something in high school, and I can still do the first several…
is, am, was, were, are, be, being, been, looks, appears, seems, becomes….
I think if you replace all those with verbs that carry more meaning you both eliminate passive voice AND dump extra words…
You know though… active voice carries attribution, and as an expert misattributer, I know it is occassionally good to leave the reader in the dark…
“The judge was killed”
is definitely a better lead to a mystery than
“The disgruntled paralegal killed the judge.”
[sorry to ramble... I do that when I'm avoiding my day job]
*winks*
Great refresher course, Galen. We all need to be reminded, even editors, and you did a great job.
Helen
Straight From Hel
The author of this post is thanked by Marisa for this
refresher.
Very clever, Marisa, you passive gal, you. Maybe it should be changed from the By George syndrome to the By Marisa syndrome. Works for me.
Very good class, Professor Kindley. Couldn’t have taught this one better myself. I used to write passively all over the place until I ran into my first REAL editor. She whipped me real good about it. Now when I write in my WIP’s I periodically use the Word tools to check the % of passive voice in my ms’s and even without actively seeking and destroying passivity as I write I’m usually at 5 or less % – which is what most pub’s want these days. There IS, however, a place for some passive voice in a book. Just be sparing.
Goog tutorial.
The Old Silly
Thanks for the review. I can always use a reminder.
I’m coming back tomorrow for sure because I’d like to see/learn when passive voice is appropriate.
Isn’t it strange how we spend a lifetime teaching kids to construct sentences well, and once they master that tell them to go back to the way they spoke before they were taught all those rules!