Module 7 Instructor Guidance

In starting to think about active and passive verbs, it's necessary to learn the two classes of action verbs called transitive and intransitive:

 

Transitive and Intransitive Verb Examples

INTRANSITIVE:	He sang.
TRANSITIVE:	He sang a song.
INTRANSITIVE:	She wrote.
TRANSITIVE:	She wrote a novel.

 

In the sentences in the above, you will see that transitive verbs are active verbs that have an object that receives the direct action of the verb.  Intransitive verbs don't have an object that's receiving the action of the verb. 

In contrast, sentences in passive voice contain a form of the verb to be. They can sometimes create confusion because the subject doesn't not perform an action like in a transitive or intransitive verb, but in the passive voice the subject doesn't perform any action but actually receives the action of the verb. 

For example: 

1. The seashell was found by the little girl playing at the beach.   (The little girl actually does the action, not the subject.)
2. The vase was broken.  (We might not know who did it but the vase received the action of being broken.)
3. The laundry is always done by my sister. (This sentence contains by clarifying who did the laundry.)
4. The cookies were baked at the grocery store bakery.  (By is not present in this sentence, but it is passive voice because the subject, cookies, doesn't perform the action; the bakery performed the action on the subject, cookies.)

As you might notice in the sentences, in addition to a form of the verb to be, you will often see the word "by" in a passive construction.  

In active voice, the subject is “responsible” for the action described, as in this example:

Faculty members often forget to lock their office doors when they go to the workroom to print something.

Who did the forgetting? The answer is the faculty members – that is, the subject of the sentence. We know this because the verb is active. Look at the difference in the following example where the verb is passive:

Professor Mulden’s purse was stolen from her office last week when she went to the computer room and forgot to lock her door.

Who did the stealing? Certainly, not Professor Mulden! She was not responsible for the action; she only suffered the effects. We know this because the main verb is in a passive form.

Because passive voice can be confusing or awkward, many writers avoid it altogether. Scientists reporting their research, use passive voice to express their methodologies. Expressing research in this way keeps the focus on the data rather than on the researchers' actions. 

“Measurements of ice thickness were taken on the first and 15th day of every month.”

In this module, we will learn to interchange active and passive voice and understand its uses in academic writing.