Active Voice v. Passive Voice

Examples

Active: The candidate believes that Congress must place a ceiling on the budget. Passive: It is believed by the candidate that a ceiling must be placed on the budget by Congress. Active: Researchers earlier showed that high stress can cause heart attacks. Passive: It was earlier demonstrated that heart attacks can be caused by high stress. Active: The dog bit the man. Passive: The man was bitten by the dog.

Active Voice

In a sentence written in the active voice, the subject of sentence PERFORMS the action. Subject + Action + Object = Active Voice - The active voice is generally preferred in academic writing, so it should be used throughout most essays. -Using the active voice tends to make sentences more clear and less wordy. This becomes particularly important in longer sentences. -Using the active voice allows for writing to be less wordy, and this makes for better writing.

Passive Voice

In a sentence written in the passive voice the subject RECEIVES the action. A shortcut to try and identify passive construction in your writing is to look for an extra "be" verb (is, are, was, were) and the word "by". Example: The man was arrested by the police officer.