Sentences with Passive Voice

When do you use active voice, and when do you use passive voice?

Use the active voice when you want to emphasize the doer of an action. In the active voice, the subject of the sentence generates
the energy of the sentence. Here is an example:

I wrote two books before I was 25.

In the passive voice, this sentence is:

Two books were written by me before I was 25.

Can you see which voice makes better sense for what is being said here? Doesn't the first sentence seem stronger? Choosing the
active voice brings a liveliness to writing. However, learning how to use the passive voice effectively will bring power to your writing.

Use the passive voice when you want to emphasize the receiver of the action. In the passive voice the receiver of the action is the
subject of the sentence. Here are two sentences in the passive voice:

A decision was reached by the board of trustees. The motion was made to research the costs of contracting with a pizza maker to
serve lunch one day of the week.

In these sentences, the "decision" and the "motion" have more prominence than the actors (the board of trustees making the
decision and passing the motion). Do you think that these sentences should be revised and rewritten in the active voice? Often
sentences like these are wordy. Sometimes sentences like these can also be combined. Here's a clear, energetic revision:

The board of trustees moved to research the costs of contracting with a pizza maker to serve lunch one day of the week.

Nevertheless, the passive voice does have some good uses.

Use the passive voice to emphasize the results of an action:

A proposal to increase exploration for natural resources in wilderness areas was rejected by the voters.

Use the passive voice when the agent or doer of the action is unknown:

The picnic in the park was cancelled as soon as the rain started to fall.

Use the passive voice if doing so helps you place emphasis.

When you want to emphasize an experiment or describe a process, the passive voice is a good choice. Also the passive voice can
help you use the end of a sentence emphatically. Here's an example of these reasons to use the passive voice:

Corn has been genetically engineered to resist insects. Bacteria from an effective pesticide has been placed in the genetic material
of corn. Fields of this Bt corn are reported to yield a larger harvest than corn that does not contain this genetic material. However,
data on the long-term effects on humans of new corn in foods has not been collected.

In this paragraph, can you hear a process being described? Can you feel the emphatic weight of the last word?

Now you decide which of these two sentences is better:

The town's residents will be choosing a new mayor next year.

A new mayor will be chosen by the town's residents next year.

Doesn't the writer have to have a plan and focus in order to choose which voice will be more effecti