The usage of direct and indirect objects in a sentences
What is the passive voice? In general, the active voice makes your writing stronger, more direct, and, you guessed it, more active. The subject is something, or it does the action of the verb in the sentence. With the passive voice, the subject is acted upon by some other performer of the verb. (In case you weren’t paying attention, the previous two sentences use the type of voice they describe.)
The difference between active and passive voice While tense is all about time references, voice describes whether the grammatical subject of a clause performs or receives the action of the verb
Here’s the formula for the active voice:
[subject]+[verb (performed by the subject)]+[optional object]
Chester kicked the ball.
In a passive voice construction, the grammatical subject of the clause receives the action of the verb. So, the ball from the above sentence, which is receiving the action, becomes the subject. The formula:
[subject]+[some form of the verb to be]+[past participle of a transitive verb]+[optional prepositional phrase]
The ball was kicked by Chester.
That last little bit—“by Chester”—is a prepositional phrase that tells you who the performer of the action is. But even though Chester is the one doing the kicking, he’s no longer the grammatical subject. A passive voice construction can even drop him from the sentence entirely:
The ball was kicked.
When (and when not) to use the passive voice? If you’re writing anything with a definitive subject who’s performing an action, you’ll be better off using the active voice. And if you search your document for instances of was, is, or were and your page lights up with instances of passive voice, it may be a good idea to switch to active voice.
That said, there are times when the passive voice does a better job of presenting an idea, especially in certain formal, professional, and legal discussions. Here are three common uses of the passive voice: 1. Reports of crimes or incidents with unknown perpetrators
My car was stolen yesterday.
If you knew who stole the car, it probably wouldn’t be as big a problem. The passive voice emphasizes the stolen item and the action of theft.
2. Scientific contexts
The rat was placed into a T-shaped maze.
Who places the rat into the maze? Scientists, duh. But that’s less important than the experiment they’re conducting. Therefore, passive voice.
3 When you want to emphasize an action itself and the doer of the action is irrelevant or distracting:
The president was sworn in on a cold January morning.
How many people can remember off the top of their heads who swears in presidents? Clearly the occasion of swearing in the commander in chief is the thing to emphasize here.
In each of the above contexts, the action itself—or the person or thing receiving the action—is the part that matters. That means the performer of the action can appear in a prepositional phrase or be absent from the sentence altogether.