This handout is also available for download in PDF format. We refer to a sentence as being in the "active voice" when the subject is performing the action of the sentence (the verb). A sentence is in ...

Writing in the active voice makes the meaning clear while keeping sentences from becoming complicated and wordy. Sentences using passive voice are not necessarily wrong, just less effective than ...

If you use contact sign language (signed English) with your deaf students, be extra careful not to try to sign the components of an English passive voice verb. You may communicate just the opposite to ...

Voice is a complex issue, but it appears to mark a prominent object that the speaker chooses to make prominent. In English there are two voices: active and passive. The passive voice is the marked ...

(Sentence 2 happens to be in the past tense, but 3 is not; both 2 and 3 are in the passive voice.) 2. The passive voice uses more words than the active voice. 3. A sentence with a verb in the passive ...

In the exercise below, you are to distinguish between true passive voice constructions and stative passive constructions. After reading each sentence, record your choice by clicking on either the word ...