Active & Passive Voice

Course Materials : 4th Meeting

Compiled by : Refsi Fatri Yarni, B.A
 Contents of the presentation

• Explaining Active & Passive voice

• How to convert sentences between active and passive voice

• When to use which and why

 Sentence Structure (SVO)

The police arrested the robbers.

(subject) (verb) (object)

*A verb is an action. The performer of that action is called the subject, and the
one on whom that action is performed is called the object.
 Active Voice
Millions of viewers watched the World Cup.

(Subject) (verb) (object)

Passive Voice
The World Cup was watched by millions of viewers.

(object) (verb) (subject)

Changing Active to Passive Voice

• Positions of the subject and the object are switched.

• Auxiliary verbs and prepositions are added where necessary.

• The verb is converted to its 3rd form.

 Active Voice
The storm caused the delay of the flight

(subject) (verb) (object)

Passive Voice
The delay of the flight was caused by the storm

(object) (h.verb) (m.verb) (preposition) (subject)

Some sentences cannot be converted to the
passive voice.
Sentences containing intransitive verbs cannot be converted to the
passive voice.

For example: ‘The lion roared’, ‘the glass cracked’

(since these sentences do not contain an object, they cannot be
converted to the passive voice)
When to use what & why ?

The active voice is used when:

• The sentences need to be kept short and

simple.

• The focus is on the subject.

 The passive voice is used when :

• The subject is unknown or irrelevant.

• The subject is obvious.

• The focus is on the verb or object rather than the subject.

 The passive voice should be generally avoided :

• When writing news articles and stories.

• When the subject of the sentence is more important than the object.

• When there needs to be a direct relationship between the subject and the
verb.
Thank You