Table of Contents
In active voice, the subject acts.
In passive voice, the subject has something done to it.
Active vs passive voice
In the active voice, the subject is the actor, the doer of the action.
In the passive voice, the action is done to the subject, with the doer often included in the sentence in a prepositional phrase, often “by …”.
The passive voice uses a form of “to be” with the past participle. It may or may not identify the doer. (If the reader does not need to know the doer, the passive is the better choice.)
The active voice moves the story forward more directly, as the doer of the action is identified early in the sentence.
Certainly, there are times when the passive voice is appropriate, but in general, particularly in writing fiction, the narrative should be written as much in the active voice as possible. The format of actor followed by action in the sentence allows the reader to move forward with less difficulty.
Shorter sentences move the action more quickly. The passive voice tends to create longer sentences.
The passive voice slows down the reader who is trying to determine who did what. The reader frequently has to read to the end of the sentence to find the “who.”
If the purpose of the sentence is to minimize the actor and emphasize the action, the passive voice may accomplish that goal.
(A clause is a sentence which may or may not stand alone. It has a subject and verb. Often clauses are combined to allow two or more actions between the initial capital letter and the ending punctuation mark.)
Examples:
- (Active) Joshua threw the ball up in the air.
- (Subject = “Joshua,” action = “threw the ball”)
- (Passive) The ball was thrown up in the air (by Joshua).
- (Subject = “ball,” action = “was thrown,” [doer of action = “Joshua”])
- (Active) The ball reached the top of its arc as Fido watched it eagerly.
- (First clause: subject = “ball,” action = “reached the top”; second clause: subject = “Fido,” action = “watched”)
- (Passive) The top of the arc was reached (by the ball) as it was watched eagerly (by Fido).
- (First clause: subject = “top of the arc,” action = “was reached,” [doer of action = “ball”]; second clause: subject = “it,” action = “was watched,” [doer of action = “Fido”])
- (Active) As the dog leaped to catch it, a dinosaur whacked the ball with his tail.
- (First clause: subject = “Fido,” action = “leaped to catch”; second clause: subject = “dinosaur,” action = “whacked”)
- (Passive) As it was about to be caught (by the dog), the ball was whacked (by a dinosaur using his tail).
- (First clause: subject = “it,” action = “was to be caught,” [doer of action = “Fido”]; second clause: subject = “ball,” action = “was whacked,” [doer of action = “dinosaur”])
- (Active) Still recovering from the shock, Joshua called the keeper at Jurassic Park.
- (Subject = “Joshua,” action = “called”)
- (Passive) The keeper at Jurassic Park was called (by Joshua), still recovering from the shock.
- (Subject = “keeper,” action = “was called,” [doer of action = “Joshua”])
Examples in paragraph form:
Active voice
Joshua threw the ball up in the air. The ball reached the top of its arc as Fido watched it eagerly. As the dog leaped to catch it, a dinosaur whacked the ball with his tail. Recovering from the shock, Joshua immediately called the keeper at Jurassic Park.
Passive voice
The ball was thrown up in the air by Joshua. The top of the arc was reached by the ball as it was watched eagerly by Fido. As it was about to be caught by the dog, the ball was whacked by a dinosaur using his tail. The keeper at Jurassic Park was called immediately by Joshua, still recovering from the shock.
Appropriate use of the passive voice
On the other hand, the passive voice might be more appropriate in a description of a scientific experiment. (Italics indicate the passive voice.)
- After forming a hypothesis, an experiment must be set up and performed to test the hypothesis.
- An experiment must have an independent variable, which is something that is manipulated by the person doing the experiment, and a dependent variable, which is the thing being measured (and which may be affected by the independent variable).
- All other variables must be controlled so that they do not affect the outcome.
- During an experiment, data is collected.
- Data is a set of values; it may be [measured] in numbers (quantitative) or a description or yes/no answer (qualitative).
- Source: biologydictionary.net, Performing an Experiment
- (https://biologydictionary.net/scientific-method)
(To make the point clearer, I rearranged the wording in the last sentence to put “measured” with “may be.”)