Passive voice/Active voice: Avoid passive voice verb structure in news writing, especially in your lead’s first verb. Passive voice is a subject-verb structure in which the subject is having (or has had or will have) something done to it. For example: “The house was destroyed by fire.” “House” is the subject, and it had something done to it. It “was destroyed.” The opposite of passive voice is active voice. Active voice is a subject-verb structure in which the subject is doing (or has done or will do) something. For example: “Fire destroyed the house.” “Fire” is the subject, and it did something. It destroyed the house. By implication, active-voice verbs must be action verbs.

Often, switching a sentence from passive voice to active voice means figuring out what your subject can do and making it do that. If you have a subject than can’t do anything, use a different subject. For example, suppose you want to switch the passive-voice sentence, “The house was destroyed by fire” to active voice. You have two choices:

1. Pick a different verb – one that can make the subject (house) do something: “The house went up in smoke.” Or “The house burned to the ground.”
2. Pick a different subject *and* verb. An example of this solution is presented above: “Fire destroyed the house.”

Students sometimes confuse “voice” with “tense.” A verb’s tense conveys the time frame of the action the verb expresses. The most common tenses are past, present, and future. It’s important to see that a verb’s voice does not depend on its tense. For example, the verb in each of these sentences ( “to throw”) is active voice:

• The boy threw the ball (past tense).
• The boy throws the ball (present tense)
• The boy will throw the ball (future tense).

In each sentence, the verb is active voice because the verb’s subject (boy) did, does, or will do something. The boy threw / throws / will throw.

Meanwhile, the verb in each of these sentences (to be) is passive voice:

• The ball was thrown by the boy (past tense)
• The ball is thrown by the boy (present tense)
• The ball will be thrown by the boy (future tense).

In each of these sentences, the verb is passive voice because the verb’s subject did nothing. Intead, the subject had something done to it by someone or something else. The ball was / is / will be thrown … by the boy.

There’s more. Don’t get the idea that a verb is always passive if its structure includes some form of “to be.”

For example, “Susan is scheduling an appointment with her adviser” is active voice, but “Susan is scheduled to meet with her adviser” is passive voice. Here’s why:

• In the sentence “Susan is scheduling an appointment with her adviser,” the subject, “Susan,” is acting. She is scheduling. You may recognize this structure as present progressive tense. See the Verb Tenses handout for a refresher.
• But in the sentence “Susan is scheduled to meet with her adviser,” the subject, “Susan,” is being acted upon. She is scheduled. Some unnamed force or person has scheduled her to meet with her adviser.
• The single, best way to identify passive voice is to find the subject and ask yourself whether subject is the source of the action (active voice) or the object of the action (passive voice).