28 Grammar: Passive Voice Verbs

What do you already know?

Read these sentences:

• The college distributed new masks to students.
• New masks were distributed to students.
• New masks were distributed to students by the college.

What is active voice and passive voice?

What is a sentence in the active voice?

A sentence in the active voice has a subject that does the action of the verb.

What is a sentence in the passive voice?

A sentence in the passive voice has a subject that receives the action of the verb. An optional “agent” does the action of the verb.

Take another look

• The college distributed new masks to students.
• New masks were distributed to students.
• New masks were distributed to students by the college.

How do you make a passive voice sentence?

To make a passive voice sentence, you use a form of to be + past participle.

Are there any special rules to remember?

Transitive and intransitive verbs

First, do not use passive voice with intransitive verbs. Transitive verbs can have a direct object. Intransitive verbs cannot have a direct object.

Transitive verbs

• Examples: catch, write, say, drive
  • I drove the red car.
  • The red car was driven by me.

Intransitive verbs

• Examples: die, arrive, go, fall
  • I arrived at the party.
  • The party was arrived by me.

Progressive/continuous forms

Second, the passive voice is very rare in progressive/continuous forms.

• He is playing soccer now.
  Soccer is being played by him now.
  (sounds strange and is very rarely used)
• She will be reading a book.
  A book will be reading by her.

Agents

Sometimes you include the agent (the “doer” of the action) somewhere after the verb and usually near the end of the sentence.  However, the agent is optional; it is not required.

• The coffee was made before I arrived.
• The coffee was made by Sam before I arrived.

When do you use the passive voice in your writing?

To guide the reader’s attention

Readers pay more attention to the subject of a sentence. You can guide the reader’s attention by placing something important at the beginning of the sentence.

• Barack Obama was elected president for the second time in 2012. (more attention on Barack Obama than on the voters)
• “The Mona Lisa” was painted by Leonardo da Vinci in the early 16th century. (more attention on the painting than the artist)

To avoid repetition and unnecessary information

• Each of the used cars was driven less than 5,000 miles per year. (you don’t know who did the driving, or it is not important)

To avoid blaming someone

This can be a polite way to say something happened without naming who did it; you simply do not include an agent.

• You have been asked many times to clean your room! 
• It’s been mentioned that you leave work early every day.

To sound more objective

• The conclusions of the research have not been proved beyond any doubt.
• Results of the research for a vaccine were presented by the CDC in Washington yesterday.

To write more formally in the third person

• I believe that we should adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as law.
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights should be adopted as law.

What are some common errors writers make when using the passive voice?

Here’s one …

• Incorrect: The garden has been water every day this week.
• Correct: The garden has been watered every day this week.

We must use the past participle after the to be verb.

Here’s another …

• Incorrect: The computer repaired by the technician for free.
• Correct: The computer was repaired by the technician for free.

We must use a form of to be with the past participle in passive voice.

Here’s one more …

• Incorrect: My students are listened closely.
• Correct: My students listen closely.

We must use the passive voice only with transitive verbs.