Active and Passive Voice - BrainPop UK
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00:00Sheesh, politicians these days.
00:14I see you've been busy.
00:17Really?
00:19A letter?
00:22Dear Tim and Moby,
00:24My teacher says I should use more active voice in my writing.
00:27Is that always true?
00:29From Warren.
00:31Hey Warren.
00:32Voice has to do with how we construct sentences.
00:35Specifically, how we string together the subject, verb, and object.
00:40Swapping the order of these elements can turn a sentence from the active voice to the passive
00:45voice.
00:48Usually the subject is the doer of the verb.
00:52It's the person, place, or thing that performs an action.
00:55The object receives the action of the verb.
00:59Sentences where the subject carries out an activity are in the active voice.
01:03Well, because the subject is literally active.
01:07It's doing something, like reading, or shredding, spying, buying votes.
01:20You're in a lot of trouble, bucko.
01:23In the passive voice, we swap the object with the subject.
01:28So the action of the verb is performed on the subject.
01:32The newspaper is read by Tim.
01:35Yeah, it sounds pretty clumsy, and it's wordier than the active voice.
01:42We have to shift the verb to the past participle, link it to the subject with a form of to be,
01:47in this case, is, and link it to the object with a preposition, like buy.
01:54You can change the voice of almost any sentence.
01:58Mayor Dobie buys a vote, is active.
02:01We can switch it to the passive, a vote is bought by Mayor Dobie.
02:05In most cases, active voice will sound cleaner.
02:09That's why teachers recommend sticking with it.
02:13Passive voice is grammatically correct, but the active voice is usually stronger and more
02:18dynamic.
02:20Just look at what the district attorney is saying.
02:22I will not tolerate corruption in any form.
02:25Not corruption in any form will not be tolerated by me.
02:29Ooh, and look at that.
02:31Mayor Dobie will pay for what he's done.
02:35Passive construction shifts attention away from the doer.
02:38A speaker or writer can use it to obscure who performed the verb, like this guy.
02:45Right, mistakes were made, is passive, and it's unclear.
02:50We can't even tell who made the mistakes.
02:54What a weasel.
02:56Sure, passive voice is fine when mentioning the doer isn't possible or necessary, like
03:02when he's unknown or totally obvious.
03:08That's a good point.
03:10Sticking with the active voice for too long can feel overly forceful.
03:13I mean, just listen to this DA.
03:16The mayor is guilty.
03:18I will prosecute him fully.
03:20Authorities know where he is.
03:23Man, that's getting repetitive, isn't it?
03:26Using the passive voice can mix things up a bit.
03:29Ah, here we go.
03:30Mayor Dobie will be indicted by tomorrow morning.
03:40Huh.
03:42I see you finally took off that silly disguise.
03:45The mustache and the wig.
03:48Right, your cousin, Dobie.
03:52I'm sure the DA will buy that one.