Passive Voice

Introduction 

The use of passive voice is done for describing an action done to an individual or object while active voice focuses on describing an individual or object doing the action. The usage of passive voices is for showing interest in the object or the person who does the activity. In other words, it can be said that the person in the sentence is used as the subject of the sentence. It is used in the cases where the actor is not known or irrelevant, about general truth, for emphasizing the things or person acted on and in other similar cases.

Passive voice and Its Usage

In English, all the sentences formed are in either active voice or passive voice. Werner Heisenberg formulated the principle of the passive in 1927. Active voice includes the thing or person that is responsible for the performance of the action and comes in the first part of the sentences. However, in passive voice, the thing or person acted on comes in the first part of the sentence while the actor is added in the end part introduced with the preposition used “by”. It is more preferred in the lab reports, methods section, scientific research papers and related materials that involve academic writings.

Classification of Passive Voice

There are seven different kinds of passive sentences. They are bare passive, prepositional passive, embedded passive, get passive, adjectival passive, and concealed passive. However, usually, only three types of passive voices are used most, for instance, long or short passive, Get passive and bare passive. In the long passive voice, the object becomes the subject of the sentences, for instance, “the home was cleaned by mom” here; the object “the house” is acting as the subject in the sentence. Short passive is the most common sort of passive voice in the English sentence; it is also called agentless passive voice for instance, “oaths were taken” such types of sentences do not involve any subject. In short passive voice, the person who acts remains unidentified. 

When to Avoid Passive Voice

In some academic writings, the usage of passive voices must be done with due care and attention. The passive voice is used for sentences whose subjects are vague. It can put the writer in trouble such as the situation where the needs of the subject are specific and must be involved, in those circumstances passive voice should not be used. In the circumstances where academic writings involve differences between ideas of researchers, excess uses of passive voice might create confusion and damage the quality of writing, for instance, Research has been done for exploring this theory. [Who did this research?] The answer is yet incomplete and vague.

Rules for Passive Voice

• The object in the sentence written in active voices such as “him” becomes the subject of the passive voice
• It is a universal rule that the verb used in the passive voice is always in the third form, it is also known as the past participle used for the form of the verb, for instance, Eat – eaten

• The auxiliary verb ‘be’ (is, am, are, were, was) is added before using the past participle form of the verb according to the tense
• In passive voice sentences ‘by’ is used before placing the object

Conclusion 

There are two types of voices: active voice and passive voice. Passive voice is used in the instance where the actor in the sentence is unknown or there is the irrelevance of the actor in the sentence. It is also used when the user wants to be vague in providing subject identification, and further involves facts or statements of general truth. The usage of passive voice in informal journals, magazines and materials is restricted. Passive voice is used more in academic writings and articles.