The passive voice is often shunned by literature professionals as a poor writing strategy.
For many writers, they opt for the active voice because it is extremely effective in communicating with the audience. That is why it is advisable to use a free online passive voice corrector to check your content.
But what is the difference between the two categories?
For the active voice; it usually refers to a structure whereby the subject performs a certain action; or in other words, known as verbs within a sentence.
Alternatively, the passive voice refers to a structure where the subject is acted by the verb within a particular sentence.
Wow, this can be quite confusing for most. This is where an active and passive voice corrector comes to play.
Nonetheless, the passive voice is usually not advised when writing content. However, it is useful in some contexts of writing.
Pros of Using the Passive Voice
Here are some of the advantages of using the passive voice in writing: especially in the realm of non-fictional writing.
- If we don’t want to emphasize the individual responsible for a particular action, we can use passive voice to focus the reader’s attention on the action itself.
As a matter of fact, we tend to use the passive voice in a sentence when we would like to leave out a particular subject within a sentence.
For example, we can say “The tea was heated.”
In this sentence, it is of minimal importance to the reader who or what was heating the tea. Instead, the heating process is what is important!
- Provides anonymity within a sentence: Because the passive voice doesn’t let us know who performed a particular action, it is much easier for us to eliminate a subject within a subject.
This is particularly useful in suspense when we would like to reveal an individual who has performed a particular action, but not just yet.
For example: “The tea was heated.” Which makes us a question: by what? Or by whom?
- Improves our objectivity: Because the passive voice paragraph is designed to distance the reader from the content that he or she is reading, the reader can foster better objectivity with the content.
This is the primary reason why most academic reports have a passive voice structure.
On the other hand, the realm of broadcasting encourages writers to use passive voice to have a lure the attention of the audience and keep them hooked to what they are reading.
- Conveys authority: If the active voice provides a conversational tone for the reader, the passive voice expresses a more formal setup. As a matter of fact, most readers perceive an authoritarian voice whenever they are reading passive voice-written content.
Cons of Using the Passive Voice
There are some major disadvantages of using the passive voice. This is why it’s important to know how to change passive voice to active voice. There are also a couple of passive words to avoid in writing when focusing on the active voice.
- It tends to be boring: If you work in print or media, then you know the monotony that comes with passive voice. It’s just not captivating. And it might even make you lose readers!
- It tends to downplay the severity of a disaster: Have you noticed that when it comes to breaking news on a disaster, the media always tends to use the passive voice?
That’s because it has the natural element of downplaying something because the subject stops being the main focus of the sentence. Ooh, such a conspiracy!
Why Is It Not Advisable To Use Passive Voice in Your Writing?
If you’re an up-and-coming writer, then it might be tempting to fall back to the passive voice. Indeed, years of middle-school essays molded us to rely mainly on the passive voice.
News flash! It’s a scapegoat in writing.
That’s why it’s essential to know how to correct passive voice!
However, the main disadvantage of using the passive voice is that it will never give content the same energy relative to the active.
Readers might find your content rather mundane after skimming a couple of paragraphs; and alas, your writing career might be over in a heartbeat!
Nevertheless, to be a great writer, you need to seamlessly fuse both the passive and active voice flawlessly in your content.
Like two sides of a coin; one cannot be the head if there were no tails, right?
Which leads to the question…
What Are the Rules for Correcting Passive Voice?
Remember, when a sentence is written, it can be done so either in the passive voice or the active. With that in mind, here are the rules to correcting passive voice.
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Rule 1
The active voice is present in a sentence when the subject executes the action that is represented by the particular verb present. For example, Ann washed the dishes.
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Rule 2
The passive voice is present in a sentence when the action represented by a particular verb performs the said action on the subject. For example, The washing of the dishes was done by Ann.
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Rule 3
When it comes to transforming from active to passive, you first need to know who or what the subject is in a given sentence.
For example, in the aforementioned The washing of the dishes was done by Ann, we can clearly see that Ann is the subject of the sentence.
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Rule 4
Subsequently, you also need to identify the action represented by the verb in the sentence. In this case, the phrase, the washing of the dishes is the action that is carried by the verb ‘washing’
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Rule 5
Reverting back to rule 1, we know that the active voice takes place when the subject is done by the sentence.
Now that we’ve recognized the subject and the action, we can change to the active voice as follows:
- The washing of the dishes was done by Ann
- Ann (subject) washed (subject performing the particular action) the dishes. (Bam! Active voice executed!)
Why It’s Ideal to Use an Active and Passive Voice Corrector!
Whether you’re a student or a professional writer, a passive voice changer can play a monumental role in making your content resonate with your reader.
Here are some of the ways the software works to improve your writing:
- Checks your entire content: The passive voice corrector online can check large sections of content seamlessly and highlight instances of passive voice that you had bypassed.
- Improves your writing: After highlighting all the sections of the content, the corrector aids you with the necessary changes that you desire to change passive to active voice. Which inevitably…
- Saves you lots of time: Imagine doing this manually! It would take you over an hour especially if you’re working on a 2000+ manuscript!
Benefits of Using Our Passive to Active Voice Corrector
Here are some of the benefits you are bound to receive when accessing our active vs. passive voice checker:
- Executes an instant check: The program performs an instant check on your content to highlight any phrases that are using a passive voice.
- The service is absolutely free: You can use the service without paying for any premium plan.
- The service can be used online: The service has an auto-correct online website hence you don’t have to worry about making any downloads that could potentially give your computer viruses.
- It comes with extra utilities: Apart from having a passive to active voice correction option, the program proofreads the content further to check for any grammatical errors.
- You can put it as a chrome extension: To ensure all your online content is checked, you can install the chrome extension for easier use.
- It easy to access for virtually any content: The corrector can be used for both academic and content writing.
With this in mind, you can access our website to begin using our active and passive voice corrector today!
