Opens in a new windowA recent study suggests that less educated people–those who dropped out of school when they were 16–have a harder time understanding sentences written in the passive voice than those written in active voice.
He notes that it sounds better to write, “Your electricity will be shut off,” than “We, the electric company, will be shutting off your power.” Is Passive Voice Hard to Understand? Other examples of passive voice for political reasons could include “Bombs were dropped,” and “Shots were fired.” Pay attention to the news and listen for examples of passive voice.Īlso, a reader named Matthew commented that businesses sometimes use passive voice. Ronald Reagan famously said, “Mistakes were made,” when referring to the Iran-Contra scandal. Politicians often use passive voice to intentionally obscure the idea of who is taking the action. The problem with that sentence is that you don’t know who loves Amy. When you put sentences in passive voice, it’s easy to leave out the person or thing doing the action. Also, passive voice is usually wordy, so you can tighten your writing if you replace passive sentences with active sentence. Sometimes passive voice is awkward and other times it’s vague. Passive voice isn’t wrong, but it’s often a poor way to present your thoughts.Īnother important point is that passive sentences aren’t incorrect it’s just that they often aren’t the best way to phrase your thoughts. One clue that your sentence is passive is that the subject isn’t taking a direct action. Notice that the subject, the pen, isn’t doing anything in that sentence. For example, the sentence “I am holding a pen” is in active voice, but it uses the verb “am,” which is a form of “to be.” The passive form of that sentence is “The pen is being held by me.” Is “To Be” a Sign of a Passive Sentence?Ī lot of people think all sentences that contain a form of the verb “to be” are in passive voice, but that isn’t true. If you wanted to make the title of the Marvin Gaye song passive, you would say “It was heard by me through the grapevine,” not such a catchy title anymore.
The focus of the sentence has changed from Steve to Amy. Rather, she is just the recipient of Steve’s love. Instead of saying, “Steve loves Amy,” I would say, “Amy is loved by Steve.” The subject of the sentence becomes Amy, but she isn’t doing anything. In passive voice, the target of the action gets promoted to the subject position. “I” is hearing “it,” the object of the sentence. A straightforward example is the sentence “Steve loves Amy.” Steve is the subject, and he is doing the action: he loves Amy, the object of the sentence.Īnother example is the title of the Marvin Gaye song “I Heard It through the Grapevine.” “I” is the subject, the one who is doing the action. In an active sentence, the subject is doing the action. I’ll start with active voice because it’s simpler. Well, Brian is right, the first step is to help people understand the difference between active and passive voice, because many people believe they should avoid the passive voice, but fewer people can define it or recognize it.
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