Eli5 How does passive/active voice work???
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Passive voice is a bad way to express ideas. It is a way to focus on the existence of an idea rather than express it.
Active voice says what you want to say with an action verb.
First paragraph = passive, Second = active.
Active voice: I chop the onion.
Passive voice: The onion is chopped.
Active voice uses the “normal” sentence structure, and the subject (“I” in my example) is an active actor doing something. Passive voice uses the verb to be and a past participle, and the subject (“the onion”) is “passive” in the sense it has stuff happen to it rather than doing it itself.
verbs have two voices, passive and active
choose the one you find more attractive
passive – This egg was laid by a hen named Sade.
active – A hen named Sade laid this egg.
Active voice *does* things. “I broke the lamp” is active voice – I am the one who took the action, and the sentence is about me doing it.
Passive voice *has things done* to it. “The lamp got broken” is passive voice – I am the one who took the action, but the sentence is about the lamp that had action taken again it.
Lot’s of good, smart, correct answers here. Let me try the 5yo version:
Who did what?
If the sentence follows that structure, you are 90% there. There are lots of exceptions and rules but that’s the simplest I’ve ever heard it described.
In high school I had a totally nutty, eccentric English teacher whose class was comprised of nothing but watching classic (Shakespeare etc.) movies and writing essays about them. This teacher was notorious for leaving the classroom for *very* lengthy periods of time, to the point that he was truly legendary — but I digress.
Literally the only thing I remember him teaching us was that we could **never** use helping verbs (am, is, are, was, were, etc.) in our writing; we always had to find a way to use “action verbs” instead. My classmates and I had no idea what he was teaching us, or why he wanted us to avoid helping verbs at all costs. At the end of the semester, each student would go to the podium at the front of the classroom, read their essay out loud, and then write their own grade in the gradebook before returning to their seat. That teacher was such a strange man.
In any case, I think I was in my 30s (as a practicing lawyer) before I realized that he was teaching us to write in the active voice:
– Passive: John *was* killed … (by whom?)
– Active: Bill *killed* John
… and that’s how I learned to hate the passive voice.
When you have a sentence, you typically have a subject, a verb, and an “object.”
* The verb is the action.
* The subject is the thing that performs the action.
* The object is the thing that is acted on.
Active and Passive voice exist because the came idea can be structured in two different ways
Typically, you want to use “active voice” which simply means that the sentence is structured so the subject performs the action on the object: **I made a mistake.**
* “I” is the subject
* “made” is the verb
* “mistake” is the object
But you can also structure the same basic idea such that what should really be the object becomes the subject. This is passive voice: **Mistakes were made.**
This hides the agency (who is performing the action?). It is “passive” and generally undesirable.
Passive voice has its uses, but writer often make the mistake of using it when they should really use active voice, resulting in wishy-washy or weak prose.
In general active and passive voice change what you want the reader to pay attention to. Do you want them to pay attention to the actor or the act?
*The bill was passed by the senators -* Passive – Attention is on the bill passing.
*Senators passed the bill* – Active – Attention is on the senators.
A lot of my college students write about the past in the passive voice, which is wordy and can make reading tedious. I encourage writing in the active voice which is more clear and direct.
*The teapot dome scandal was when the Secretary of the Interior illegally leased public lands to private investors without bidding in the 1920s.* (Passive – emphasis is on the lease) [edit: it’s been commented this isn’t passive voice. An apology was written for the error.]
*In the 1920s the Secretary of the Interior illegally leased public lands to private investors without bidding.* (Active – emphasis on the Secretary of the interior)
People sometimes use the passive voice on purpose to deemphasize their role in an event.
People have already provided a great overview of the grammar. With active, there’s definitely an efficiency factor. Often, active voice provides greater efficiency because it requires fewer “parts” to assemble a coherent statement. Passive voice tends to include more parts, more steps, and increases the risk that you’re missing a part altogether.
I’ll add that it’s useful to understand a little bit about application—specifically in terms of style and intent that might be helpful.
Stylistically, the type writing and associated voice can matter. I could make the case that using only active voice makes things a little awkward, curt, and even robotic. Efficiency tends to be helpful for readers, but more creative or personal writing can benefit from variation and strategic “breathing room.” On the flip side, passive voice can make things more confusing—especially when the writing uses a lot of prepositions (of, to, from, etc.) and makes it hard to figure out who’s doing what to whom. I tend to write what I’m going to write and then rewrite passive phrases where context, clarity, or reader attention might suffer.
People can also make certain active / passive choices to frame what they want to say. When there’s an incentive or need to highlight the subject, active does just that. If you’ve won an award for selling the most widgets, you’d want someone to say, “[*Your name*] won the award” not “The award was won.” Similarly, if you were suing your neighbor for biting you, you’re better off saying “[*Your neighbor’s name*] bit me” versus “I was bit.” On the flip side, it’s common to use passive phrasing when a subject is unknown or if someone wants to shift focus from responsible parties (e.g. “I broke the vase” vs. “The vase was broken”).
Agree with most of the answers here in terms of *how* it works, but for a little more advanced explanation (let’s say explain like I’m 10+) as for *why* you might use one over the other, I’d talk about how it affects *agency*. Ultimately, you can make both an active and passive sentence say the same thing, but which mode you use often says a lot about your motivation.
The active voice (subject *does/is doing* the verb) usually implies that the subject has the ability to do the thing and intended to do the thing. When using the passive voice (something *is being done* to the subject), it often implies that the subject doesn’t have agency, that the action is out of the subject’s control.
So if you happen to see someone telling a story where they’re using the passive voice a lot, they *may* be trying to convey that they *aren’t at fault* for something that happened. You’ll see it in politics, in legal proceedings, in corporate-speak, and many other places where people are trying to pass the buck. Compare which would make you look worse as a company’s CEO: “The company lost a lot of money this year,” vs “The company was affected by a steep loss this year.” There’s only so much you can hide while telling the truth, but the passive voice makes it sound that you’re more removed from the cause.
That’s not the only reason for using the passive voice, of course, but it’s one reason why you still see it used, even though most students are taught early on that the active voice is usually preferred.
Edit: Altered the comparison a bit to make the connection between the two sentences more direct.
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