Written by Write Site Staff
A not uncommon bit of feedback students receive in their writing concerns the use of what’s called passive voice. Passive voice is essentially the flipping of verbs and subjects in a sentence and often involves the use of “be” verbs (am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been). The direct object (the objective or goal of the verb) is in the subject position.
For example:
Passive: The metropolis was terrorized by hordes of zombies.
The actor (hordes of zombies) is at the end of the sentence. The direct object (metropolis) is in the subject position.
Active voice puts the “actor” in the subject position. To find the “actor” of a sentence, look for the action word – the verb – and figure out who did the action of the verb.
For example:
Active: Hordes of zombies terrorized the metropolis.
The actor (hordes of zombies) is moved to the subject position, and the object (the metropolis) is receiving the action of the verb (terrorized). The “be” verb (was) is eliminated.
Like most things in English, however, using active voice is a culturally dictated “rule.” Academics and grammarians prefer active voice because it’s less vague than passive voice. The concreteness of an active sentence structure leaves little to the imagination while the passive structure can leave the subject of the sentence out entirely. In the end, passive voice is a stylistic concern.
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