Unlike an ‘active’ sentence, a ‘passive’ sentence put the object first. For example:
As you can see, the verb in the passive tense takes a different form and if we mention the subject, we add ‘by’.
Form of the Passive Voice —- (be) + 3rd Form (Past Participle)
The form of the Passive tense requires the verb (be) and this changes, depending on the tense which are using – Past, Present or Future – Simple, Continuous, or Perfect, or other forms such as modal verbs (will, should, can etc) and gerund or infinitive forms.
All of these tenses are covered in the chart below.
Before looking at the specific form of each tense, lets look at why we use the Passive Voive rather than using an ‘Active’ sentence.
Uses of the Passive Tense
1. When we don’t know who did the action, or it’s obvious/ unimportant.
- My bike was stolen last night – (we don’t know who did it)
- The suspect was arrested today – (it is obvious the police did the action)
- The office is cleaned every Friday – (it is not important who does the action)
2. When we want to focus on the object and not the subject.
- The project will be launched next week. (the focus is on the project)
- The pyramids were created using slave labour. (The pyramids are the focus here)
- Mistakes were made. (Focusing on mistakes, creating distance from the speaker)
3. For formal writing, instead of using generic words like ‘people’, ‘they’ etc.
The Passive Voice makes our writing more formal and so it is used in more formal texts, such as legal documents and notices to the public. Formal writing can be found in many areas, particularly news articles and reports. The following are some examples from news articles:
- A video clip which had been edited was posted to her social media account. (instead of someone posted a clip …)
- The mini-Christmas trees were delivered to homes for the elderly.
(instead of people delivered mini-trees …)
- A leatherback turtle has been found on a beach in Dublin.
(instead of someone found a leatherback turtle ….)
4. In factual/ academic/ scientific writing.
Academic writing has to be more formal in general, so the passive tense can be found throughout academic papers, conferences etc.
- The evidence of this can be seen in the results of Smith’s survey.
- A number of factors are known to affect the outcome.
- It is widely understood that detrimental affects have been observed in children.
