English Grammar - Active and Passive Voice (Part 2)

By: Musaadah


Here is an easy way to find passive verbs. See and read the sentence if you can find a phrase that starts with “by.. something or someone”. If you can, the verb is probably passive. If you can’t find a “by” phrase, try to insert one of your own.

Active:
John helps his mother
Jack bought this book last month

Passive :
His father is usually helped by John
The books was bought by John last month.
The mistake was made by John

The candles were melted. (by whom? by what?....by the heat.)

Passive verbs make your message ineffective and weak. When you proofread your work, you should always read it through just looking for passives. Remember, restructure the sentences to place the “doer” of the action at the beginning of the sentence when you find them. It’s important to know how to reduce the number of passive verbs you use in your writing. For example, if you find a sentence that looks like this:

Michael was bitten by a vicious dog.

you should rewrite it, putting the “doer” at the beginning.

A vicious dog bit Michael.
At the party, DVDs were played and local news discussed.

This would be more effective if the verbs were in the active voice.

At the party, the guests played DVDs and discussed local news



Related Topics:
Kinds of Verbs (Part 2)
Kinds of Verb (Part 1)
English Grammar l Active and Passive Voice (Part 1)