Active and Passive Voice

Voice is a grammatical feature that shows the relationship between the subject and the action expressed by a verb. English primarily uses two voices: active and passive.

Active Voice

In the active voice, the subject typically performs the action:

The teacher explained the lesson.
The company built the bridge.

The basic pattern is:

Subject + Verb + Object

Active voice is usually direct, concise, and natural when the doer of the action is important.

Passive Voice

In the passive voice, the grammatical subject is typically the recipient or affected participant of the action:

The lesson was explained by the teacher.
The bridge was built by the company.

The passive is generally formed with:

appropriate form of be + past participle

The original object of an active sentence becomes the subject of the passive construction:

The police arrested the man.
The man was arrested by the police.

The Agent

The person or thing performing the action in a passive sentence can be introduced with by:

The novel was written by George Orwell.

However, the agent is often omitted when it is unknown, obvious, unimportant, or deliberately not mentioned:

The window was broken.

This is one of the main reasons writers use passive voice.

Passive Voice Across Tenses

Passive constructions can occur with different tense and aspect combinations:

The work is completed.
The work was completed.
The work has been completed.
The work will be completed.

The tense is carried by the auxiliary structure, while the main verb appears as a past participle.

When Passive Voice Is Useful

Passive voice is particularly common in:

• scientific writing
• technical writing
• official reports
• news reporting
• descriptions of processes

For example:

The samples were tested under controlled conditions.

The emphasis is on the samples and procedure, rather than on the people who performed the testing.

Passive voice is not inherently inferior to active voice. Effective writing depends on choosing the voice that best serves the purpose, emphasis, and information structure of the sentence.