ACTIVE AND PASSIVE VOICE

ACTIVE VOICE
Most of the writing we do at university is in what we call the active voice. The active voice helps
the reader understand clearly who or what does the action by placing it first in the sentence. The
doer of the action is known as the ‘subject’, and this is almost always followed immediately by
the action or being word (verb).

e.g. The children ate the chocolate.

In this sentence ‘The children’ are the subject or doers of the action ‘ate’ (verb). In this instance
‘the chocolate’ is what we call the ‘object’ of the sentence – the receiver of the action. Similarly,
in the following sentence, ‘The authors of the report’ is the subject and ‘analysed’ is the verb
describing what the report did. The object of the sentence is “three alternative approaches’.

e.g. The authors of the report analysed three alternative approaches.

PASSIVE VOICE
Occasionally it is useful to change the focus of the sentence, so that the object (receiver of the
action) comes first. One way to achieve this is to use the passive voice. When we use the
passive voice, we can also sometimes choose to avoid saying who did the action (the ‘agent’).

For example:

The chocolate was eaten by the children

Object (now as subject) to be past participle doer agent

Please note:

 Only verbs which have an object can be made into the passive. These are called
‘transitive’ verbs. Intransitive verbs do not have an object.

e.g. The student sneezed. = No passive form

 Tense is formed in the to be verb.

TENSE Active Passive

Present simple The children eat the chocolate The chocolate is eaten (by the children)
Present continuous The children are eating the chocolate The chocolate is being eaten (by the
children)
Present Perfect The children have eaten the The chocolate has been eaten (by the
chocolate children)
Past simple The children ate the chocolate The chocolate was eaten (by the
 children)
Past continuous The children were eating the The chocolate was being eaten (by the
chocolate children)
Past perfect The children had eaten the chocolate The chocolate had been eaten (by the
children)
Future simple The children will eat the chocolate The chocolate will be eaten (by the
children)
Future continuous The children will be eating the The chocolate will be being eaten (by
chocolate the children)
Future perfect The children will have eaten the The chocolate will have been eaten (by
chocolate the children
Present conditional The children would eat the chocolate The chocolate would be eaten (by the
children)
Past conditional The children would have eaten the The chocolate would have been eaten
chocolate (by the children)
Use with modals The children should/could/must eat The chocolate should/could/must be
the chocolate eaten (by the children)

WHEN TO USE THE PASSIVE VOICE

Most academic writing should be in the active voice. However, there are times when it is useful
to use the passive:

1. When you want to emphasise the thing or person acted on

e.g. The art collection containing over 2000 works was lost in the fire.

2. When the performer of the action is unknown or not important

e.g. Compulsory voting was introduced in Australia in 1911.

3. When it is obvious who did the action

e.g. The thief was sentenced to 3 years in prison.

4. In scientific writing to objectively describe a process or experiment

e.g. Research participants were asked to describe what they saw.

5. When you are talking about a general truth

e.g. Laws are made to make society run smoothly.

6. When you deliberately want to be vague about who was responsible for the action

e.g. Errors were made in the calculation of the budget.

WHEN TO AVOID THE PASSIVE VOICE
While it can be appropriate and useful to use the passive, many academic disciplines prefer that
you use the active voice and avoid the passive if possible. Check with your own discipline to be
sure what is expected of you. There are several possible reasons for this.

1. Use of the active voice tends to make your writing clearer, stronger and more direct.
2. Passives can be used to mask gaps in your knowledge, by avoiding crediting a person or
thing with an action. As a result, writing can be vague, and arguments can be imprecise
or weak.
e.g. It is claimed that 73% students prefer to study with music on in the background.

(Who claimed this? Which study?)

3. Overuse of the passive can make a passage ‘wordy’ and hard to read.

Conditionals

Conditional sentences usually have two parts, known as clauses. One of these is a result clause;
the other is an if clause. The order of the clauses can usually be reversed.

e.g.

If I get a good result I will be very happy.

[if clause] [result clause]

I will be very happy if I get a good result.

[result clause] [if clause]

The traditional types of conditional are called zero, first, second and third.

Zero:
If + present + present. e.g. If you heat water to 100°C it boils.

First:
If + present + future simple. e.g. If I get a good result I will be very happy.

Second:
If + past simple + would + infinitive. e.g. If I got a good result I would be very happy.

Third:
If + past perfect + modal + have + past participle. e.g. If I had got a good result I would have
been very happy.
N.B.

Time and tense are not the same. For instance, the present tense is used to refer to future time in
a sentence such as "If it rains, I will go".

There are many more types of conditional constructions. The following chart is based on The
grammar book by Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999, pp. 548, 552) and is used with their
permission.

The chart breaks conditionals down into three main categories: factual, future and imaginative.

Factual Conditionals
Factual conditionals can be timeless (outside time, expressing habits or scientific facts) or time-
bound (referring to present, past or different times).

Future Conditionals
Future conditionals can express a strong or weak condition or result (something will happen or
may happen) or be used to give advice or commands.

Imaginative Conditionals
Imaginative conditionals can be hypothetical (unlikely but possible in the present or future) or
counterfactual (impossible, referring to present or past time).

You can use conditionals to:

 State scientific facts in the present tense:

e.g. If you heat water to 100C, it boils.

 Show habitual actions in the present or past:

e.g. If I estimate the results first, it always helps.

If we misinterpreted the results, we indicated this immediately.

 Show implications:

e.g. If you create a spreadsheet, you can formulate the results more easily.

If you legislate for X, it could occur.

If you researched the area, you must have realised the problem before we did.

 Make inferences about the past:

e.g. If they financed the project, they may have distributed the product too.
  Make predictions about the future:

e.g. If you analyse the results, you will define the problem more clearly.

 Give commands:

e.g. If you proceed with the experiment, interpret the findings carefully.

 Show possible plans or actions:

e.g. If you assess the data thoroughly, you might establish the cause of the problem.

 Give advice:

e.g. If you benefit from the study, you should identify the key factors in its success.

 Show future possibilities:

e.g. If you exported the table, it would require too much data.

If I were to process all this data, I would structure the resulting graph very carefully.

 Refer to impossible situations in the present:

e.g. If Einstein were alive today, he would probably solve the problem.

 Refer to impossible situations in the past:

e.g. If you had contextualised the argument it would have been more useful.

You can also use conditionals to:

 Speak humourously.

e.g. If that's the best Gordon Chan can do, I'm glad he doesn't cook for me!

 Speak sarcastically.

eg As if she knew!