Passive voice phrases are often considered a bad writing habit by teachers and other professional quotas. Generally, passive voice construction occurs when the subject in a sentence is acted upon rather than performing the action. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t use passive voice in your writing.
This brings us to the question; Is passive voice always bad?
Not necessarily. There are instances where passive voice construction will come in handy.
In this article, we are going to learn how to turn passive voice into active voice, when using the passive voice is ideal, and how our passive voice tester can help.
But first, what’s the difference between passive and active voice?
The Difference between Active and Passive Voice
Whereas tenses revolve around time, voice mainly tries to establish whether the subject in a sentence is performing or receiving the action of the verb.
The basic formula for active voice construction is as follows:
[subject]+[verb]+[optional object]
Example:
- John played the game.
- Mary ate the chicken.
In passive voice construction, on the other hand, the subject receives the action:
Using the above examples:
- The game was played by John.
- The chicken was eaten by Mary.
Why Passive Voice Is Bad
If your text has an unqualified subject performing an action, using the passive voice would be a bad idea. Still, if you do a quick search of your document and find phrases such as is, were, or was, compounded with passive voice phrases, you may need to switch to active voice.
When to Use the Passive Voice
On the other hand, there are instances where the passive voice outshines the active voice, especially when it comes to formal and legal discussions.
Below are some of the most common uses of the passive voice:
- Reporting crimes or occurrences with undetermined perpetrators.
Example: My ball was stolen yesterday.
- When the subject is irrelevant:
Example: An experimental car manufacturing plant will be built on the East African Coast.
- You want to maintain ambiguity about the subject:
Example: Mistakes were made.
- Your writing is describing a general truth:
Example: The Earth revolves around the Sun.
- You are writing a scientific research paper or lab report, where the mainstay voice is passive.
Example: The chlorine was dissolved in water. This mixture was then titrated using hydrochloric acid.
How to Turn Passive Voice into Active Manually
The easiest way to rewrite passive voice to active voice is to start by identifying who or what is performing the action in a sentence. After that, make the person or thing performing the action the subject of the sentence, and swap the verb accordingly.
Example:
Passive: My tooth was removed by the dentist.
Active: The dentist removed my tooth.
Another easy way to identify passive voice is to check for forms of the verb to be in your writing. Although every passive sentence construction features a verb phrase including a form of to be, it doesn’t necessarily mean that all of them result in passive voice construction.
A sentence is only considered passive when it follows the follow passive construction formula.
- Object-verb-subject
- Object-verb.
If you don’t have the necessary editing skills to manually flag passive mistakes or are strapped for cash to hire a human editor, our passive voice tester can help. This all-in-one online writing assistant helps you write better by reviewing and correcting grammar, spelling, punctuation, and clarity mistakes in your writing. It also detects accidental or intentional plagiarism, letting you submit or publish 100% unique material.
How to Turn a Passive Voice into Active Using Our Tool
Turning passive into active voice using our tool is a simple and straightforward process. Just follow these easy steps:
- Copy-paste your texts into the tool’s blank editor.
- Click the Check button and wait for the tool to analyze your texts.
- After a few seconds, the passive voice checker will generate a report highlighting all the passive voice phrases, as well as the suggested edits.
- Accept the changes by clicking on the highlighted mistakes.
Use our passive voice checker to improve your writing & boost your creativity.
