Learn the difference between active and passive voices and when to use each one, and your writing will immediately sound better.

Which of these sentences feels more alive?

A. The dog bit the cat.

B. The cat was bitten by the dog.

The first one uses the active voice. The basic structure is:

Subject - verb (active voice) - object.

X does something to Y.

Other examples:

The Vikings discovered the New World.

Manchester United beat [fill in the name of any other team].

Brad Pitt married Jennifer Aniston and then divorced her.

In all of these examples, the verb (discovered, beat, married, divorced) happens to be in the past tense. The active voice can also be used in the present tense and in the future tense.

Present tense:

I'm eating an apple right now.

Future tense:

I'm going to visit London in the spring.

Sentence B said, "The cat was bitten by the dog." That is an example of passive voice. The verb is still in the middle of the sentence, but the structure is:

Y had something done to it by X.

One little tip-off that the passive voice is present is the word "by".

Examples:

The New World was discovered by the Vikings.

The other team was beaten by Manchester United.

Jennifer Aniston was married to and divorced by Brad Pitt.

And, to demonstrate that the passive voice can be used for the present and future tenses, here are some examples.

Present tense:

The apple is being eaten by me right now.

Future tense:

London will be visited by me in the spring.

Advice

Most writers try to use the active voice to make their writing more lively and exciting. It is the preferred voice of journalism and often is the most effective for fiction.

Use the passive voice if the subject matter demands it. For example, in a summary of the history of the New World, you might say:

The New World was discovered by the Vikings in about 500 B.C., by the English in 1493, and by the French in the 1500s.

In this case, the use of the passive voice allows the reader to focus on the list of names and dates, having got the "New World" part out of the way.

However, that is a weak argument in favour of using the passive voice generally. If the active voice is appropriate, a writer should almost always choose to use it instead of the passive voice.

The exceptions arise in pieces where the editorial style requires the passive voice.

English teachers quickly spot the passive voice and often deduct marks for it when grading student essays and research papers. In the world of academic writing generally, the active voice is typically preferred. However, every discipline has its own preferred style of writing. When writing for a particular university or college department, or an academic journal, the writer should be guided by the instructions set out in the relevant style guide.

That last sentence was written using the passive voice. It has an awkward feel to it. If you can now rewrite it using the active voice, you will have understood the difference between the two voices.

Hint: Change the words "be guided by" from a passive to an active verb form. You may wish to use a different verb.

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