PASSIVE VOICE:  Part 3

Introduction

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In today's lesson we continue our unit on PASSIVE VOICE.   This is PART 3 of our series.

When Can We Create a Passive Voice Sentence?

 

Can the following active voice sentence be rewritten as passive voice?

For an ACTIVE VOICE SENTENCE:                                         yes or no? 
 

...when the main verb is transitive and takes an object		 Yes
  • They arrested the boys. 
    The boys were arrested.
  • My grandmother will make dinner.
    Dinner will be made.
  • My mother burned some incense.
    Some incense was burned.

... when the main verb is intransitive (and hence, does not take an object) No
  • She cried all night.
    INTRANSITIVE VERB; passive voice not possible.
  • We go to my wife's uncle's house every Friday night.
    INTRANSITIVE VERB; passive voice not possible.

An active voice sentence by its nature always indicates who or what performed the action.  In contrast, a passive voice sentence sometimes states and sometimes doesn't state who or what performed the action.
 
Active or Passive? The Sentence Are we told who performed the action?
Active Willa Cather wrote O Pioneers! in 1913. Yes
Passive O Pioneers! was written by Willa Cather in 1913. Yes
Passive O Pioneers! was written in 1913. No
 
Of course a passive voice sentence, like any sentence, must communicate something significant.  A sentence can be structurally correct but not be well-written.  The sentence below, for example, has a correct passive voice structure but it is silly because it does not include enough significant information.
 
Passive This is a meaningless sentence.

When you write an active voice sentence, the do-er of the action is always indicated. Be careful in a passive voice sentence to include enough significant information to make it a meaningful sentence.

WHEN should we use a passive voice sentence?

 

When it is possible to use passive voice, the decision to use or not use it rests with the writer or speaker.

Many teachers tell students to use active voice whenever possible, but this is not necessarily the best advice.

The writer or speaker may consider many subjective factors.  He may consider whether such a construction would sound natural, whether the writing is formal or informal, the format of the writing (newspaper, academic paper, personal diary or journal, etc.), whether the writer knows or doesn't know who performed the action, how much variety of grammatical forms the writer has used, and whether the writer wants or doesn't want others to know who performed the action.

Next.... Exercise 2

 

Let's go to EXERCISE 2 now.

So from the ESL Help Desk, thanks for dropping by for this lesson and remember to email us your questions about English grammar by way of our blog. 

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