Truncated passive: A copy of every Action Letter shall be sent to the Clerk of the Administrative Office for entry and filing, and a memorandum briefly describing the Action Letter shall be distributed to each Commissioner within three days thereafter. The passive voice tempts the writer to omit the identity of the actor, thus producing a fuzzy truncated passive like this: passive voice: The reasons behind their decisions must be explained by judges.ģ. active voice: Judges must explain the reasons behind their decisions.ī. The active voice is often stronger than the passive voice. passive voice: The cat was chased by the dog. passive voice: The man was arrested by the police officer. ( The man is the subject of the sentence but he is not performing the action of arresting.)Ī shortcut to try and identify passive construction in your writing is to look for an extra “be” verb (is, are, was, were) and the word “by”.ī. ( The police officer is the subject of the sentence and is performing the action of arresting.)ī. active voice: The police officer arrested the man.

In a sentence using passive voice, the subject is acted upon. In a sentence using active voice, the subject of the sentence performs the action expressed in the verb. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for links to more online resources covering this topic. Here is some more information on what these different constructions are and when you should use each of them. You’ve likely read about active and passive voice in Richard Wydick, Plain English for Lawyers (Chapter 4).

Passive to active online converter