This document provides information about active and passive voice in sentences. It explains that in active voice, the subject performs the action, while in passive voice the subject is acted upon. It gives examples of changing sentences from active to passive voice by making the object the subject and keeping or omitting the original subject. The document also discusses when to use passive voice, such as when the doer is unknown or unimportant, and provides additional examples of active and passive voice constructions.

2. Active: Peter builds a castle
Passive: A castle is built by Peter.
Form
to be + past participle
How to form a passive sentence when an active
sentence is given:
- object of the "active" sentence becomes
subject in the "passive" sentence
- subject of the "active" sentence becomes
"object" in the "passive" sentence" (or is left
out)

3. Verbs are either active or passive in
voice.
In the active voice, the subject and verb
relationship is straightforward: the subject is a
do-er.
The boy is carrying the girl.
In the passive voice, the subject of the
sentence is not a do-er.
The girl is being carried by the boy.
It is shown with by + do-er or is not shown in
the sentence.

4. When there are two objects in an active sentence, there
are two possible active sentences and two possible
passive sentences.
possibility 1: The professor gave the students the
books.
possibility 2: The professor gave the books to the
students.
There are two objects in each of the following
sentences:
object 1 = indirect object: the students
object 2 = direct object: the books
An indirect object is very often a person, a
direct object a thing. When a direct object is followed by an
indirect one, we put to in front of the indirect object

5. Passive sentences with by
We are normally not interested in the "doer" of an action in a passive
sentence. When we want to mention the "doer", we use the
preposition by. The whole phrase is called by-agent in English.
When we do not know, who was the "doer" of the action, we
use someone or somebody in the active sentence. We leave out
these words in the passive sentence.
Active sentence Passive sentence
Mr Brown built the
house.
The house was built by
Mr Brown.
Active sentence Passive sentence
Someone stole my
bike.
My bike was stolen.

6. Active sentence Passive sentence
Someone broke
into the pet shop.
The pet shop was
broken into.
When we put an active sentence, where a preposition
follows after the verb (e.g. break into, look after), into
passive - the preposition remains immediately after the
verb

7. We only use the passive when we are interested in
the object or when we do not know who caused
the action.
Example: Appointments are required in such
cases.
We can only form a passive sentence from an
active sentence when there is an OBJECT in the
active sentence

8. Passive voice is used when the action is the focus,
not the subject. It is not important (or not known) who
does the action.
The window is broken. (It is not known who broke the
window, or it is not important to know who broke the
window.)
The class has been cancelled. (The focus is on the
class being cancelled. It is not important to know who
cancelled it.)
The passive voice is often used. (The focus is on the
passive voice. It is not important to explain who the
writer is.)

9. Passive voice should be avoided when you want more
clarity in writing. However, in some cases, you need to use
passive voice to stress the action, not the actor. Also,
passive voice can be considered more polite, as it sounds
less aggressive or dramatic.
That building was built in 1990.
The car was invented about a hundred years ago.
I was told that Mary moved to a different country.
Your business is appreciated.
She was elected to city council.
It was rumoured that the company would lay off a few
people soon.
It is recommended that the billing process be shortened.