Active and Passive Voice
Active Voice
In the active voice, the subject of the sentence performs the action described by the verb. The focus falls on who or what is doing something. This is the default, most direct way to express an action in English — it is concise, energetic, and leaves no ambiguity about who is responsible for the action.
Structure: Subject + verb (+ object) — the subject acts upon the object
Clarity: The doer of the action is always named explicitly as the grammatical subject
Conciseness: Active sentences are shorter and more forceful than their passive equivalents
Default choice: Use active voice unless there is a deliberate reason to shift focus
Active Voice Examples Across Tenses
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Simple Present: The chef cooks the meal.
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Present Continuous: The chef is cooking the meal.
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Present Perfect: The chef has cooked the meal.
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Simple Past: The chef cooked the meal.
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Past Continuous: The chef was cooking the meal.
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Past Perfect: The chef had cooked the meal.
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Simple Future: The chef will cook the meal.
Passive Voice
In the passive voice, the object of the active sentence becomes the grammatical subject. The verb changes to a form of be + past participle. This shift redirects the spotlight from the doer to the receiver of the action — the reader's attention lands on what happened or what was affected, not on who did it.
Structure: Subject (receiver) + appropriate form of 'be' + past participle (+ by-phrase)
Focus shift: The receiver of the action occupies the subject position, making it the topic of the sentence
Agent optional: The doer can appear in a by-phrase at the end or be omitted entirely
When to choose: Use passive voice when the action or the receiver is more important than who performed it
Passive Voice Examples Across Tenses
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Simple Present: The meal is cooked (by the chef).
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Present Continuous: The meal is being cooked (by the chef).
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Present Perfect: The meal has been cooked (by the chef).
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Simple Past: The meal was cooked (by the chef).
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Past Continuous: The meal was being cooked (by the chef).
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Past Perfect: The meal had been cooked (by the chef).
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Simple Future: The meal will be cooked (by the chef).
The Agent and the By-Phrase
The agent is the entity that performs the action in a passive sentence. It is introduced by the preposition 'by' in a by-phrase placed after the verb phrase. Including the agent answers the question 'Who or what did this?' — but it is not always necessary. Deciding whether to include or drop the by-phrase depends on what the sentence needs to communicate.
Include the agent when the doer is important, surprising, or needs to be credited: 'The painting was created by a local artist.'
Omit the agent when the doer is obvious, unknown, or irrelevant: 'The thief was arrested.' (obvious — the police), 'The window was broken.' (unknown doer)
Impersonal tone: Dropping the agent creates an objective, formal register common in scientific and academic writing
Avoid awkward passives: If you have to include a long by-phrase just to name the agent, active voice is usually clearer
When to Include vs Omit the By-Phrase
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Include — the agent is new information the reader needs: 'The theory was proposed by Einstein in 1905.'
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Include — the agent is surprising or noteworthy: 'The concert was cancelled by the lead singer herself.'
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Omit — the agent is obvious from context: 'The criminals were sentenced.' (by the judge)
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Omit — the agent is unknown: 'My car was stolen yesterday.'
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Omit — the result or process matters more than who did it: 'The solution was heated to 100 °C.'
Tense Preservation in Voice Transformation
When you convert a sentence from active voice to passive voice, the tense must remain exactly the same. Only the grammatical roles change — the subject becomes the agent in the by-phrase, the object becomes the new subject, and the verb shifts to the matching passive form. The auxiliary verb 'be' carries the tense information while the main verb becomes a past participle.
Core rule: The tense of the original active verb is preserved — you never change the time frame during conversion
Be form selection: Choose the form of 'be' that matches the original tense (is/was/has been/will be, etc.)
Participle agreement: The past participle stays the same regardless of tense — it is always the -ed/-en/-irregular form
Modal verbs: Sentences with modals (can, must, should) use 'modal + be + past participle' in the passive
Tense-by-Tense Passive Formation Guide
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Simple Present active → Simple Present passive: writes → is written
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Present Continuous active → Present Continuous passive: is writing → is being written
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Present Perfect active → Present Perfect passive: has written → has been written
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Simple Past active → Simple Past passive: wrote → was written
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Past Continuous active → Past Continuous passive: was writing → was being written
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Past Perfect active → Past Perfect passive: had written → had been written
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Simple Future active → Simple Future passive: will write → will be written
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Future Perfect active → Future Perfect passive: will have written → will have been written
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Modal active → Modal passive: can write → can be written
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Modal Perfect active → Modal Perfect passive: must have written → must have been written
When an active sentence has both a direct object and an indirect object, either one can be promoted to subject position in the passive. The indirect object usually makes a more natural passive subject because it is often a person, but both forms are grammatically correct. The object not chosen as the subject remains in its original position or is introduced with a preposition.
Indirect object as subject: 'The teacher gave the students a task' → 'The students were given a task (by the teacher).'
Direct object as subject: 'The teacher gave the students a task' → 'A task was given to the students (by the teacher).'
Preposition shift: When the direct object becomes the subject, the indirect object typically takes the preposition 'to' or 'for'
Sentences containing modal verbs (can, could, may, might, must, should, would) or infinitive structures follow a predictable passive pattern: the modal or infinitive marker stays in place, 'be' is inserted after it, and the main verb becomes a past participle. The tense and meaning of the modal are fully preserved.
Modal passive: 'You must complete the form' → 'The form must be completed.'
Infinitive passive: 'She wants to finish the project' → 'She wants the project to be finished.'
Modal perfect passive: 'They should have repaired the road' → 'The road should have been repaired.'
Going-to future passive: 'They are going to launch the product' → 'The product is going to be launched.'
Object Focus and Communicative Function
Choosing between active voice and passive voice is not a grammar question — it is a communicative function decision. The writer or speaker asks: 'What does the listener need to focus on?' If the doer matters most, active voice delivers the clearest sentence. If the receiver, the result, or the process matters more, passive voice places that information in the prominent subject position. Effective communicators switch between voices to control where the reader's attention lands.
Agent importance: If who did it is the key information, use active — 'Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin' (not 'Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming,' unless the topic is penicillin).
Object importance: If what was affected is the key information, use passive — 'The ancient temple was restored in 2019' (focus on the temple, not the workers).
Flow and cohesion: Passive voice can link sentences smoothly when the previous sentence's object becomes the next sentence's subject — 'The experiment was conducted. The results were recorded. A conclusion was drawn.'
Formal register: Scientific reports, legal documents, and news headlines favour passive voice for its impersonal, objective tone
Voice Selection Decision Guide
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Choose active when the doer is important, known, and the focus of the passage
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Choose active for instructions and commands: 'Press the button' (not 'The button should be pressed')
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Choose passive when the receiver or result is the topic of discussion
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Choose passive when the doer is unknown, obvious, or irrelevant
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Choose passive for an objective, impersonal tone in academic or formal writing
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Choose passive to maintain information flow — old information first, new information last
Special Cases and Restrictions
Only transitive verbs — verbs that take a direct object — can be converted to passive voice. Intransitive verbs such as arrive, sleep, die, happen, and exist have no object to promote, so they cannot form passive constructions. Similarly, stative verbs that describe states rather than actions (belong, resemble, fit, suit) generally resist passive transformation even when they take objects.
No passive for intransitives: 'She arrived late' has no passive — there is no object to move to subject position.
No passive for state-of-being verbs: 'He has a car' cannot become 'A car is had by him' — 'have' in the sense of possession does not passivise naturally.
Middle voice: Some verbs occupy a middle ground — 'The book sells well' is neither purely active nor passive; the subject is not the agent but the sentence is not a passive construction.
Ergative verbs: Verbs like 'open', 'break', 'close' can be used both transitively ('She opened the door') and intransitively ('The door opened'), making passive transformation context-dependent.
Verbs That Cannot Form Passive
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Intransitive verbs: arrive, sleep, die, happen, occur, exist, seem, appear
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State verbs of possession: have, own, possess, lack, belong
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Relational verbs: resemble, equal, contain, comprise, cost, weigh, measure
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Stative perception verbs (in state sense): see (when meaning 'understand'), hear (when meaning 'know')
Phrasal verbs — verb + preposition/adverb combinations such as 'look into', 'turn down', 'put off' — can be passivised when they are transitive. The preposition or adverb particle stays attached to the verb, and the entire unit behaves like a single transitive verb. The object of the phrasal verb becomes the passive subject.
Verb + particle: 'They turned down the proposal' → 'The proposal was turned down.'
Verb + preposition: 'She looked into the matter' → 'The matter was looked into.'
Three-part phrasal verbs: 'They put up with the noise' → 'The noise was put up with.'
Separable particles: When the particle is separable ('turn off the light' / 'turn the light off'), both word orders passivise to the same result: 'The light was turned off.'