Active and passive
Consider the two sentences below. What is the difference between them?
- The council workers cleared the path.
- The path was cleared by the council workers.
The same event is taking place in both sentences, but the sentences have been expressed in different ways.
In the first example the focus is on what the council workers did (they cleared the path), whereas in the second example, the focus is on what happened to the path (it was cleared by the council workers).
Welcome back!
Englicious is totally free for everyone to use!
But you will have to log in to see our library of teaching resources.
If you don’t have an account, that’s perfectly OK. You can register (for free).
It only takes a minute or two.
Active and passive: Style and use
In some genres of writing – science reports, for example – the passive voice is encouraged. However, many advocates of ‘plain English’ argue that the passive voice can be confusing to readers, and obscures meaning.
The examples below are from articles on the natural sciences, taken from the ICE-GB corpus. They illustrate the use of the passive voice (verb phrases in the passive are highlighted):
Active and passive: Creating cohesion
When does a writer or speaker choose to use a passive rather than an active? There can be various reasons. We’ll look here at the effects of using passives in different contexts.
Consider sentence (1). Would it be more natural to follow it with (2) or (3)? Why?