One of the keys to holding a reader’s interest from beginning to end is mastering the skill of writing in the “active voice”. It isn’t that difficult, actually – you do it all the time – but it’s very easy to make the mistake of slipping into passive voice throughout your work.

• Passive Voice Exercises
• How Do I Check For Passive Voice On Mac For Word Download

How to spot passive voice in your writing. You end up with passive voice in your writing when you get your nouns out of order within a sentence. The subject of your sentence, not the object in the sentence, should precede the verb. For example: “James wrote a killer blog post.” “The killer blog post was written by James.” You already. Functions of the passive voice The passive voice is used to show interest in the person or object that experiences an action rather than the person or object that performs the action. In other words, the most important thing or person becomes the subject of the sentence.

Passive voice, left unchecked, slaughters reader interest more efficiently than a glaring typo.

When a reader catches a small misspelling, they at least can chalk it up to a mistake. But when they read too much passive voice in your writing … well, they just think you’re boring.

How to spot passive voice in your writing

You end up with passive voice in your writing when you get your nouns out of order within a sentence. The subject of your sentence, not the object in the sentence, should precede the verb. For example:

“James wrote a killer blog post.”

“The killer blog post was written by James.”

You already know the difference in readability between those two sentences, and that’s because, most of the time, passive voice, doesn’t feel right or sound natural to you.

You can also spot passive voice when you look for two verbs stuck together: “was written” was the dead giveaway in the example above. Other common red flags of passive language include “has been”, “will be” and “to be”.

For the most part, you’ll write in active voice instinctively. You automatically knew the second sentence would sound clunky if you said it out loud, so chances are low that you’d ever consider writing it that way.

However, passive voice is a sneaky devil, especially in longer or more complex sentences where it’s easy to misjudge the subject and the object. Take a look at this example:

“The sports of hockey, curling and ice skating are loved by Canadians in particular.”

That looks straightforward and readable, right? Now compare it with this version:

“Canadians particularly love hockey, curling and ice skating.”

Read them both out loud. (Whisper if you need to.) The second one (in active voice) is easier to say, which means it’s easier to read. It has more energy. It doesn’t feel like it’s trailing off into a land of boredom.

It wins.

How to fix passive voice instantly

Passive voice is easy to fix. All you have to do is rewrite your sentence so that the subject of your sentence comes before the verb. You’ll find your sentences tighten up as you do so, which automatically improves your writing, too.

Checking your sentences for passive voice may seem like a chore, but it’s not as demanding as scouring your text for typos. Just keep your eyes open for action-based sentences.

If someone is doing something, double check to see if it looks like the “something” was being done to them.

You can also check for passive voice using the Hemmingway App, a website that scans through your writing looking for examples of passive voice and difficult-to-read sentences. It’ll also gives you an indication of the grade level of your writing, which is a nice plus.

Why is passive voice so pervasive in writing?

I’ll leave that to Stephen King, who said it best in his book On Writing:

I think timid writers like them for the same reason timid lovers love passive partners. The passive voice is safe. There is no troublesome action to contend with; the subject just has to close it’s eyes and think of England, to paraphrase Queen Victoria. I think that unsure writers also feel the passive voice somehow lends their work authority, perhaps even a quality of majesty. If you find instruction manuals and lawyer’s torts majestic, I guess it does.

I agree with this. Far too often writers believe that they have to make their writing sound impressive and wordy – I mean, “eloquent” – and that passive voice has some sort of grown-up, schoolteacher feel.

No. It doesn’t. Not even close. Tight, active writing is more impressive, almost every time.

Of course, there are exceptions

At the beginning of this article, I didn’t say passive voice was inherently bad for your writing. I said that passive voice, left unchecked, would damage readability and interest.

Sometimes you’ll actually want to use the passive voice. Sometimes it sounds more memorable and makes your writing pop. In fact, I used passive voice earlier when I said:

If someone is doing something, double check to see if it looks like the “something” was being done to them.

In this case, passive voice adds weight and impact to the sentence, and makes the reader think (in a good way). But you need to use it intentionally, and test against other variations of the same sentence.

So that’s what you need to know about eliminating passive voice from your writing. Keep it active, make sure your nouns and verbs are in the right place, and you’ll be off to the races. And remember: You don’t have to avoid passive voice entirely – only about 99.5% of the time.

We learned in school that good writers should avoid using the passive voice. Yet this is one grammar lesson in particular that we all seemed to have forgotten . . . or never really understood in the first place.

Microsoft Word’s grammar check consistently places green squiggly lines underneath places where we have used the passive voice. Double-clicking on those errors prompts a “Passive Voice (consider revising)” message from Word's grammar checker.

Often, this error is not understood, and therefore we ignore it. It’s time to set the record straight.

We decided to take Microsoft up on its suggestion, and to try 'consider revising'.

Subjects and Objects

Understanding the difference between objects and subjects will help you understand the passive voice.

This can be a tough challenge even for native English speakers.

The key lies in the action of the sentence: knowing who/what is performing (subject), and who/what is affected (object).

Take the following example sentence: Torret torrent.

S (Subject) = the person, place or thing that the sentence is about.

Sam is the subject, because he performs the action.

O (Object) = the person, place or thing which is affected by an event or action.

The cake is the object, because it is affected by the action.

The Normal Order of Things: (S-V-O)

To tell the difference between S (subjects) and O (objects), it can be helpful to know that English is an SVO language. This is a sort of code to describe the order of things.

In English, in most sentences, the order is: Subject-Verb-Object, or SVO.

Sentence	Subject	Verb	Object
Sarah traveled to Spain.	Sarah	traveled	Spain
Dan throws the ball.	Dan	throws	the ball
What do you eat for breakfast?	you	eat	breakfast

SVO Languages (a partial list):

English, Kashmiri, Arabic, Finnish, Russian, Chinese, Bulgarian, Khmer, Luganda, Yoruba, Quiche, Javanese, Malay, Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese, Swahili, and Hebrew

Scandinavian languages (Swedish, Danish, Norweigan, etc.) use the SVO format, but they switch to VSO when forming a question.

Romance languages (French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, etc.) mainly use the SVO format but have some exceptions.

Russian uses all possible formats - (SVO, OVS, SOV, OSV, VSO, VOS). German is SVO/VSO.

Basically, you can see that depending on your native language, adjusting to SVO format can be a big adjustment. This can lead to grammatical problems, and over-usage of the passive voice. It is also tricky for even native-English speakers, since most people don't 'think' about the order in which things come in sentences.

Star Wars fans?

Here's another way of thinking about it, for native-English speakers. If you've seen the movie Star Wars - think of how Yoda speaks. He inverts the order of subjects and objects, and his sentences are a little jumbled and hard to understand at first.

Yoda Quote: 'Named must your fear be before banish it you can.'

Yoda uses a different order than regular SVO English. He uses a mix of patterns, including VOS. Either way, Yoda's words are a bit confusing at first. They require additional thought. You don't want the same for your writing; the goal is clarity and boldness, not (*link) ambiguity or lengthy contemplation.

This is where 'voice' comes in.

Voice: Focus on the Action!

The “voice” of a sentence describes the sentence’s action, as either passive or active.

Remember, as we saw above, English uses the Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) order, or pattern.

Active Voice = active subject

A sector which is not writable, inaccessible or damaged is called a bad sector. Create partition for ext3 filesystem for usb mac pro. Causes of bad sectors are many, such as failed flash memory transistors, aging, quality, failed heads, etc.

In an active sentence, a subject performs a verb which affects an object. (SVO-order; correct English)

Passive Voice = passive (inactive) subject

In a passive sentence, an object receives a verb's action, which is performed by a subject. (OVS-order; passive English)

ACTIVE VOICE:

Sam baked the cake.

In this sentence, the subject is Sam.

We know this from paying attention to the action: The subject (Sam) performs the action (baking), on the object (the cake).

This is a standard, active sentence.

PASSIVE VOICE:

The cake was baked by Sam.

Here, the subject/object roles are reversed. Now, the subject is the cake.

We know this because the sentence is about the cake.

Because the subject is being acted on (by the object), instead of being the acting agent, this sentence is passive.

What the Passive Voice Looks Like

The passive voice is formed by joining:

a form of the auxiliary “to be” + Past Participle of Verb

(am, is, was, were, are, or been)

This is not the only way to spot the passive voice. There may be a “by the . . .” phrase following the verb.
Here are some examples of sentences in both active and passive forms:

Active	Passive
Dan kicks the ball.	The ball is kicked by Dan.
This store sells chocolate.	Chocolate is sold by this store.
My friends gave me a present.	A present was given to me by my friends.

Notice that the active sentences follow the SVO pattern, while the inactive sentences show a OVS pattern, like in the 'A cake was baked by Sam' examples above.

3 Steps for 'Activating' the Passive Voice:

1.) LOCATE the agent

AGENT = the person/thing in the phrase/sentence getting something done; the actor, or the performer of the verb

2.) RELOCATE the agent to the beginning of the phrase/sentence a.k.a. give the agent its proper, 'subject' status. (This will automatically give the sentence its SOV order.)