Short Notes on Actvie and Passive Voice

Passive and Active Voices

Verbs are can be either active (The executive committee approved the new policy) or
passive (The new policy was approved by the executive committee) in voice.

Active	Passive
the subject is named as the be-er or a do-er	the subject is acted upon by the agent or by something unnamed - It is the recipient of the action

use the passive voice

·       to avoid responsibility for actions taken. "Cigarette ads were designed to appeal especially to children" places the burden on the ads — as opposed to "We designed the cigarette ads to appeal especially to children," in which "we" accepts responsibility.

we might hear that "The President was advised that certain members of Congress were being audited" rather than "The Head of the Internal Revenue service advised the President that her agency was auditing certain members of Congress" because the passive construction avoids responsibility for advising and for auditing.

• When it is more important to draw our attention to the person or thing acted upon: The unidentified victim was apparently struck during the early morning hours.
• When the actor in the situation is not important: The aurora borealis can be observed in the early morning hours.

·         in scientific or technical writing or lab reports, where the actor is not really important but the process or principle being described is of ultimate importance. Instead of writing "I poured 20 cc of acid into the beaker," we would write "Twenty cc of acid is/was poured into the beaker."

·         when describing a mechanical process in which the details of process are much more important than anyone's taking responsibility for the action: "The first coat of primer paint is applied immediately after the acid rinse."

·         in a paragraph in which we wish to shift emphasis from what was the object in a first sentence to what becomes the subject in subsequent sentences.

The executive committee approved an entirely new policy for dealing with academic suspension and withdrawal. The policy had been written by a subcommittee on student behavior. If students withdraw from course work before suspension can take effect, the policy states, a mark of "IW" . . . .

The paragraph is clearly about this new policy so it is appropriate that policy move from being the object in the first sentence to being the subject of the second sentence. The passive voice allows for this transition.†

Passive Verb Formation

A sentence in the passive voice will not always include an agent of the action. For instance if a gorilla crushes a tin can, we could say "The tin can was crushed by the gorilla." But a perfectly good sentence would leave out the gorilla: "The tin can was crushed."

We do say:

Active	Professor Villa gave Jorge an A.
Passive	An A was given to Jorge by Professor Villa.
Passive	Jorge was given an A.

NB: Only transitive verbs (those that take objects) can be transformed into passive constructions. Furthermore, active sentences containing certain verbs cannot be transformed into passive structures. To have is the most important of these verbs. We can say "He has a new car," but we cannot say "A new car is had by him." We can say "Oupa lacked finesse," but we cannot say "Finesse was lacked." Here is a brief list of such verbs*:

resemble	Look like	equal	agree with
Mean	contain	hold	comprise
Lack	Suit	fit	Become