Passive and Active

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What are Active and Passive voice?
• Active and passive voice refers to whether the
subject or the object in the sentence performs
the action of the verb
• In active voice the subject performs the action
of the verb
• In passive voice the object performs the
action of the verb

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 Active Voice
• The subject performs the action of the verb
• Example:

The student presented the talk.

The subject
The action of the verb

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 Active Voice
• The subject performs the action of the verb
• Example:

The article summarized the research

The subject
The action of the verb

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 Passive Voice
• The object performs the action of the verb

The talk was presented by the student

The action of the verb The object

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 Passive Voice
• The object performs the action of the verb
• Example:

The research was summarized by the article

The object
The action of the verb

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 How do Active and Passive voice
Differ?
• The examples just shown are the same in
terms of what actually happens
• In both cases the student did the presenting
• In both cases the article did the summarizing
• So how are they different?

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 How do Active and Passive Voice
Differ?
• Active voice is direct
– The subject directly acts on the object
– The tone is clear and immediate
– As if you throw a ball directly at a target
– The target gets all the force of the ball

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 How do Active and Passive voice
differ?
• Passive voice is indirect
– The subject is acted ON by the object
– The tone is roundabout
– As if you bounce a ball off a wall to hit a target
– The wall and the target both get some of the force
of the ball
– So the impact is not as strong or clear

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 Using Active and Passive Voice in
Psychology Writing
• APA recommends the use of active rather than
passive voice
• Good writing usually uses both active and passive
voice
• Active voice is very direct, so if you use it all the
time, the reader may feel a bit like she is being
hollered at
• Passive voice is indirect, so if you use it all the
time the reader will have a hard time following
your argument
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 Using Active and Passive Voice in
Psychology Writing
• Psychology writing is objective
• Writing should be clear
• We don’t want to make the reader work too
hard
• If you aren’t certain which voice to use, you
are probably better off choosing active voice,
rather than passive voice.
• But it is ideal if you can use some of each
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 Changing Passive to Active Voice-
Example
• Here is a bad example of using passive voice in
a psychology paper
Depression has been researched by scientists for
decades.
• There is no reason to use passive voice, it
makes the sentence harder to follow. A
preferred version uses active voice:
Scientists have researched depression for
decades.
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 Changing Passive to Active Voice-
Example 2
• Here is a 2nd bad example of using passive
voice in a psychology paper
Surveys were handed out to participants by
research assistants.
• This sentence makes the research process
sound rather mysterious. A preferred version
uses active voice:
Research assistants handed surveys out to the
participants.
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