Active & Passive Voice
Learn to identify and form active and passive voice by finding the doer of the action and checking whether the subject performs or receives it.
What you'll do in this lesson
A voice-first session with the Crimsora tutor on Active & Passive Voice, then targeted practice and FRQs — with the tutor adapting to where you get stuck.
What this lesson covers
When you write, your choice between active and passive voice changes how your sentence sounds and who gets the focus. In active voice, the subject performs the action — clear, direct, and energetic. In passive voice, the subject receives the action, and the doer may be hidden or moved to a "by" phrase. Understanding both voices helps you write more deliberately and recognize when each one works best. This lesson teaches you how to identify which voice a sentence uses, why it matters, and how to convert between them.
What Is Active Voice?
Active voice occurs when the subject of the sentence performs the action. The structure is simple: subject + action verb + object. For example, "Maria wrote the report" has Maria as the subject doing the writing. The doer is always the subject, and the sentence moves directly from who acts to what they do. Active voice is typically clearer and more direct because the reader immediately knows who is responsible for the action. Most of your writing should be active voice because it creates stronger, more engaging sentences. To identify active voice, ask yourself: Is the subject the one doing the action? If the answer is yes, you have active voice. The verb in active voice is a simple action verb (not combined with a form of "be").
What Is Passive Voice?
Passive voice occurs when the subject receives the action rather than performing it. The structure uses a form of "be" combined with the past participle of the action verb: subject + form of be + past participle (+ optional by phrase). For example, "The report was written by Maria" has the report as the subject, but Maria is the one who actually wrote it. The doer appears in a "by" phrase or is omitted entirely. "The report was written" tells us the action happened but not who did it. Notice that "written" is the past participle form of the verb "write." Passive voice can be useful when the doer is unknown, unimportant, or obvious from context, such as "The bridge was damaged in the storm" (we don't need to name the storm). However, overusing passive voice can make writing seem unclear or weak because the reader must work harder to find the real agent of the action.
Recognizing the Form of Passive Voice
To spot passive voice reliably, look for the pattern: a form of "be" + past participle. Forms of "be" include am, is, are, was, were, be, being, and been. The past participle is the verb form used after "have" in perfect tenses or as an adjective describing a completed action. For example, in "The cake was eaten by the children," the verb is "was" (past tense of be) + "eaten" (past participle of eat). In "The letters are being delivered tomorrow," the verb is "are being" (present progressive of be) + "delivered" (past participle of deliver). The key signal is that combination: be + past participle. Without that pattern, the sentence is active. "They ate the cake" has no "be" verb, so it is active. "The cake looks delicious" has "is" but no past participle (delicious is an adjective, not a participle), so it is also active, not passive.
Converting Between Active and Passive Voice
Converting a sentence from active to passive requires reorganizing its parts. Start with an active sentence: "The teacher assigned the homework." Identify the object (homework) and move it to the subject position. Then form the passive verb using the appropriate tense of "be" + the past participle. The original subject (teacher) becomes the object of the preposition "by": "The homework was assigned by the teacher." Notice that "assigned" is the past participle, and "was" matches the original past tense. To convert passive to active, reverse the process. Start with "The homework was assigned by the teacher." Move the object of the "by" phrase (teacher) to the subject position, and replace the passive verb with the original action verb in the same tense: "The teacher assigned the homework." Tense must stay the same: present active becomes present passive, past active becomes past passive. If the passive sentence has no "by" phrase, you cannot convert it back unless you invent the doer, which changes the meaning.
When to Use Each Voice
Active voice is the default choice for most writing because it is clearer and stronger. Use it when you want to emphasize who is performing the action, when the doer is known and important, or when you want direct, energetic writing. Passive voice has legitimate uses: when the action or result is more important than the doer ("The deadline was extended" focuses on the change, not who made it), when the doer is unknown or obvious ("The car was stolen"), when politeness or diplomacy matters ("Mistakes were made" avoids blame), or in scientific writing where the experiment or result takes focus ("The solution was heated to 100 degrees"). However, passive voice can hide responsibility and make writing harder to follow, so avoid it unless you have a reason. Mixing both voices appropriately shows control of your writing and helps you communicate your ideas most effectively.
Key terms
- Active voice.
- A sentence structure in which the subject performs the action; formed as subject + action verb + object.
- Passive voice.
- A sentence structure in which the subject receives the action; formed as subject + form of "be" + past participle, with the doer optional in a "by" phrase.
- Past participle.
- The verb form used after "have" in perfect tenses or in passive voice; often ends in -ed but can be irregular (written, eaten, broken).
- Form of be.
- Any conjugation of the verb "to be": am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been; required in passive voice.
- Agent or doer.
- The noun or pronoun that performs the action in a sentence; the subject in active voice and the object of "by" in passive voice.
Worked example
Convert this active sentence to passive voice, then explain why you made those changes: "The students completed the project yesterday."
Start by identifying the parts of the active sentence. The subject is "students," the action verb is "completed," and the object is "project." The time expression "yesterday" stays outside the verb. To convert to passive, move the object "project" to become the new subject. Form the passive verb by using the past tense of "be" (was, to match the original past tense) + the past participle of "complete," which is "completed." The original subject "students" becomes the object of the preposition "by." Result: "The project was completed by the students yesterday." The change works because we moved the focus from the students (who did the work) to the project (what was done). The time marker "yesterday" remains at the end. The tense stayed past because the original sentence was past tense. If you wanted to emphasize the students' effort, you would keep the active voice; if you wanted to focus on the completed project itself, passive voice works well here.
Practice questions
Identify whether each sentence is in active or passive voice and explain how you know. "The lightning struck the tree during the storm."
Answer: Active voice. The subject "lightning" performs the action "struck." There is no form of "be" combined with a past participle.
To identify voice, first find the subject and ask whether that subject IS the one doing the action (active) or receiving it (passive). Here, lightning is doing the striking, so it is active. You might notice the past tense "struck," but past tense alone does not make a sentence passive — the signal for passive is the combination of "be" + past participle, which this sentence does not have.
Convert this passive sentence to active voice: "The recipe was shared by the chef with her family."
Answer: The chef shared the recipe with her family.
In the passive sentence, the subject is "recipe," which receives the action. The doer is "chef," found in the "by" phrase. To convert to active, the chef becomes the subject, and the recipe becomes the object. The passive verb "was shared" becomes the active verb "shared" in the same past tense. The phrase "with her family" moves to the end as it did in the original. Active voice here is clearer because the chef is the important agent, and we can see immediately that the chef did the sharing.
Which sentence uses passive voice correctly for a legitimate reason, and why? A) The books were placed on the shelf by the librarian. B) The accident was reported to the police. C) The team was won by the players with hard work. D) The audience was clapped for the performance.
- The books were placed on the shelf by the librarian.
- The accident was reported to the police.
- The team was won by the players with hard work.
- The audience was clapped for the performance.
Answer: The accident was reported to the police.
The accident being reported to police is a situation where passive voice makes sense: the focus is on the action (the report) rather than on who reported it, and often an accident is reported by an unspecified or obvious person. Choice A uses passive voice but would be clearer as active (the librarian placed the books). Choice C is grammatically wrong — "win" does not take passive voice logically (you cannot "be won"). Choice D is also incorrect — you clap for someone, not get clapped for. Choice B is the answer because passive voice fits the situation naturally.
FAQ
- Do I always need to include a "by" phrase in passive voice?
- No. The "by" phrase is optional in passive voice. You only include it if the doer matters or needs to be stated. "The letter was mailed" is complete passive voice even without saying who mailed it. Use the "by" phrase when the doer is important to your meaning; leave it out when the doer is unknown, obvious, or unimportant.
- Is passive voice always wrong?
- No. Passive voice is appropriate in specific situations: when the action or result matters more than the doer, when the doer is unknown, when politeness requires avoiding blame, or in scientific writing focused on experiments and results. The key is using it intentionally, not by accident. Most of your writing should still be active voice because it is clearer, but passive voice has real uses.
- How do I know if I'm using the past participle correctly in passive voice?
- The past participle is the verb form you use after "have" in perfect tenses. For regular verbs, add -ed: walked, talked, played. For irregular verbs, memorize the form: written (write), eaten (eat), broken (break), seen (see). In passive voice, that same past participle always comes after a form of "be": "was written," "are eaten," "were broken." If you are unsure of the past participle form, check a dictionary or verb list.
- Can I convert every passive sentence to active?
- No. If a passive sentence has no "by" phrase and you do not know who the doer is, you cannot convert it without inventing information. "The book was published in 1995" has no doer stated, so you cannot say "Who published it?" without changing the meaning. You can convert only passive sentences where the doer is named or strongly implied.
Learn this with a teacher, not a page
The Crimsora tutor teaches Active & Passive Voice live — explaining on a whiteboard, asking you questions, and adapting to where you get stuck.