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• How To Check For Passive Voice In Word Mac Download
• How To Check For Passive Voice In Word Mac Download

When you look over the following sentences, can you identify the ones written in passive voice and the ones using active voice?

If you correct a passive verb or click Ignore Once, Word may show you another passive verb in the same sentence, if there is one and Word can detect it. Look at your score for Passive Sentences. At the end of the spelling and grammar check, you get the Readability Statistics. Look at the Passive Sentences.

1. The blog post was being published by Reedsy.
2. Reedsy had published the blog post.
3. The blog post is published by Reedsy.
4. The blog post will be published by Reedsy.

1. Click the “Settings” button beside the ” Writing Style:” and “Grammer and Style” dropdown box. This should open up the following window.
2. Aug 23, 2015 How to Use the Passive Voice Tool in Microsoft Word 2016 - Duration: 3:31. Using Spelling and Grammar Check in Word 2016 for Mac - Duration: 0:37. Brian 10,304 views.

If you answered: “The only active sentence is ‘2,’ and the rest are passive” — you are correct! And if you're not sure why that's the right answer? Don't fear: that's why this post is here. In this article, we'll show you exactly how to spot passive voice, how to fix it, and also it's a-okay to use passive voice.

What is passive voice?

A sentence written with passive voice puts emphasis on the person or thing that experiences the action, instead of the person or thing driving the action.

For example, consider this line from Douglas Adams’ The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe:

“In the beginning the Universe was created.”

The subject of the sentence is “the Universe.” The action of the sentence is “created.” Because the subject is receiving the action (the creation is happening to the Universe), this is a passive sentence.

Passive sentences are comprised of the auxiliary verb ‘to be’ and the past tense of the main verb. For example:

“Am / Are / Is” + past verb tense — The dog is walked by his owner.

“Am / Are / Is being” + past verb tense — The dogs are being walked by their owners.

“Was / Were” + past verb tense — The dog was walked by his owner.

“Was / Were being” + past verb tense — The dogs were being walked by their owners.

“Will be” + past verb tense — The dog will be walked by its owner.

“Will have been” + past verb tense — The dog will have been walked by its owner.

“Have / Has been” + past verb tense — The dog has been walked by its owner.

“Had been” + past verb tense — The dog had been walked by its owner.

An important thing to note about passive voice is that it is not the same thing as past tense. Passive voice refers to who the action relates to, while past tense refers to when the action happened. For example, the sentence “The chef cooked dinner” is past tense because “cooked” is the past tense of “cooking.” However, the subject of the sentence is the chef, who is performing the action, so the sentence is active, not passive.

There are two types of passive sentences

Short passive, in which the subject or performer of the action is not known. For instance, the above example is short passive because it does not identify who/what the Universe was created by.

Long passive, In which the agent performing the action is known but it is not the subject of the sentence. For instance, the The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe example turns into a long passive sentence if changed to: “In the beginning, the Universe was created by the aliens.”

Let’s take a look at a few more examples of passive voice to ensure we’re all on the same page.

Passive Voice Examples

The following sentences all feature the action happening to the subject.

“He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was made.” — Scaramouche: A Romance Of The French Revolution by Rafael Sabatini
(The action “was born” is happening to the subject “he.”)

“Scarlet O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.” — Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
(The action “caught by her charm” is happening to a subject “the Tarleton twins.”)

“When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.” — To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
(The action “got his arm badly broken” is happening to the subject “Jem.”)

“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.” — The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
(The second part of this sentence sees the action “changed into a monstrous vermin” happening to subject “Gregor Samsa.”)

What is active voice?

Active voice is a sentence or clause that puts emphasis on the person or thing that drives the action, instead of the person or thing experiencing the action.

Think of the opening line from George Orwell’s 1984:

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

The subject of the sentence is “the clocks.” The action of the sentence is “striking.” Because the subject is driving the action (the clocks are doing the striking), this is an active sentence.

Check out further instances of active voice at play in the following examples.

Active voice examples

The following sentences all feature the subject enacting some kind of action.

“It was the day my grandmother exploded.” — The Crow Road by Iain M. Banks
(The subject “grandmother” is doing the action “exploded”).

“Mother died today.” — The Stranger by Albert Kamus
(The subject “mother” is doing the action “died.”)

“I write this sitting at the kitchen sink.” — I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
(The subject “I” is doing the action “write” and “sitting.”)

“You know, at one time, I used to break into pet shops to liberate the canaries.” — Harold and Maud by Colin Higgins
(The subject “I” is doing the action “break into pet shops” and “liberate the canaries.”)

Active vs passive voice: why is one considered better than the other?

It’s not a big secret in the world of grammar that passive voice is often considered as bad form. Supposedly, active voice produces stronger, more direct sentences that make your writing feel — surprise, surprise — more active.

But is passive voice actually grammatically incorrect? Nope! There are definitely times when using the passive voice can enhance a statement’s clarity.

When to use passive voice

If you are writing something that requires objectivity, like a research paper, passive voice can be your friend: It allows you to more easily avoid personal pronouns and to present information in a that sounds unbiased.

Or maybe you want to leave the perpetrator behind the action unclear. If the action itself or the thing/person receiving the action is more significant than the perpetrator, place emphasis on either of those elements by writing a short passive sentence, leaving the driving force of the action out.

For example, if you write: “The woman was sentenced to five years in jail” — the emphasis here is on the fact that the woman has received a sentence of jail. If you were to write: “The judge sentenced the woman to five years in jail” — the emphasis here is on the judge’s ruling instead.

As you can see, passive voice isn’t something you need to avoid at all costs: There are times when it’s the right choice. However, if you’re writing something meant to invite readers in — like a novel, for example — then relying too heavily on passive voice can result in writing that feels a little flat and loses a reader’s interest.

To avoid that, let’s take a look at how you can fix the use of passive voice in instances where active will serve you better.

How to fix passive voice in 2 easy steps

To show you the two fool-proof steps to fixing passive voice, we’ll use the following passive sentence as an example: “The dress was being made by the tailor.”

1. Remove the auxiliary verb

As mentioned, passive sentences often contain some form of the auxiliary verb “to be.” In this example, the auxiliary verb is “was being.”

Quick note: Not all passive sentences contain an auxiliary verb. For instance, “The dress was made by the tailor” is still passive, even though it doesn’t contain any tense of “to be” (in this example, “was being.”)

Take the auxiliary verb out and the sentence becomes:

The dress was made by the tailor.

But this is still passive, so the next step is to..

2. Change the subject of the sentence

The subject is currently “the dress” because the action in this sentence is happening to it (“the dress is being made.”) The subject of this sentence can be changed by attributing the action to the person performing it — in this case, the tailor. The sentence now becomes:

The tailor made the dress.

Congratulations! The subject is now the action-performer, meaning this sentence is now active!

Let’s put these two steps into action, and change a few more passive sentences into active ones.

Passive: The dinner was cooked by the chef.
Active: The chef cooked dinner.

Passive: The flowers were being planted by the gardener.
Active: The gardener was planting the flowers.

Passive: I had been interviewed by the manager.
Active: The manager interviewed me. Audio utilities for mac.

Passive: The students had been graded by the teacher.
Active: The teacher was grading the students.

Passive: The book was written by the author.
Active: The author wrote the book.

Passive: The house is being built by the construction workers.
Active: The construction workers are building the house.

We hope we’ve helped you understand how to identify and fix passive voice! If you feel like you could still use a hand, you can also turn to automatic passive voice checkers, such as Hemingway, Passive Voice Detector, Analyze My Writing — which are all free and web-based. Simply copy and paste the writing you want to check, and the tool will highlight instances of passive voice for you.

How do you feel about the “active voice is better than passive voice” rule? Leave any thoughts or questions in the comments below!

How To Check For Passive Voice In Word Mac Download

Even as a full-time freelance writer, I have to admit: I don’t remember much of the grammar lessons I learned in grade school.

But when writing is your bread and butter (or even just your primary hobby), figuring out the most salient points of usage takes on a new importance — or, at least, feels more important than figuring it out just to pass a pop quiz.

Chances are at least one of your teachers drilled the idea that passive voice is bad into your head.

But why did they do that? Is it that bad, really? And, with however many years separating you from your classroom experience, do you even know how to identify passive voice in the first place anymore?

Let’s take a quick, pain-and-pop-quiz-free review of this peculiar type of sentence construction.

How To Check For Passive Voice In Word Mac Download

What is passive voice?

The passive voice is a type of sentence construction wherein the subject and object switch places: rather than the subject acting on the object, the object of the action becomes, itself, the subject.

It sounds complicated, but you’ve definitely seen it used — and more than likely used it yourself without even thinking about it.

One common way the passive voice is employed (and thus an easy red flag to look for when trying to identify it in your own writing) is the use of some form of “to be” verb plus a past participle. For example:

The paper had been written when I was young and inexperienced.

(An active voice version of that idea might read: I wrote the paper when I was young and inexperienced.)

However, not all sentences that use “to be” verbs or past participles are passive! For example, all of the following sentences are in the active voice:

I had been writing all night long, but I wasn’t getting anywhere.

I have to submit my manuscript by tomorrow!

He had gone to his editor more than once about it.

“To be” verbs and participles aside, the most conclusive way to figure out whether or not a sentence is in the passive voice is to identify the subject, verb, and — if there is one — the object of the action. If the object of the action is in the front of the sentence and the subject is at the end, you’ve got yourself an example of passive voice.

Another example:

PASSIVE VOICE: The book was written by my best friend, Elizabeth.

ACTIVE VOICE: My best friend Elizabeth wrote the book.

Why is the passive voice wrong?

As discussed above, the last time you talked about the passive voice was probably in the context of being told, by some well-meaning teacher, that it’s incorrect.

So let’s be totally clear: the passive voice isn’t wrong, exactly. But it’s usually a lot clunkier than an active sentence construction.

Using the passive voice distances the subject from the action of the sentence, which leads to less clarity and urgency. It can also add unnecessary words to your manuscript, since the passive voice generally requires more auxiliary verbs than the active voice does. You need a lot more space to say The ball had been kicked by me than to say I kicked the ball.

That said, there may be times when you want to employ the passive voice to purposefully draw emphasis to the object of an action — or the fact that the object is, in fact, being treated as an object.

For instance, Writer Constance Hale argues that Germaine Greer, in writing “The Female Eunuch,” uses the passive voice “ to emphasize that a subject is not a ‘doer’ but a ‘done-to’ over at the New York Times. Here’s Greer’s passage with the passive portion bolded:

The married woman’s significance can only be conferred by the presence of a man at her side, a man upon whom she absolutely depends. In return for renouncing, collaborating, adapting, identifying, she is caressed, desired, handled, influenced.

When in doubt, however — and especially if you’re still working to understand exactly what the passive voice is — it’s usually a good rule of thumb to avoid it.

How to use less passive voice in your writing

Now that we’ve covered how to discern between passive vs. active voice and why the passive voice can be so problematic, you may be wondering how to fix or avoid it in your own writing practice.

And to be honest, like most things in the writing world — and in the whole world, as a matter of fact — a lot of it comes down to plain old practice. As you continue to write, take time to review your work specifically for instances of passive voice usage and change the sentences to active voice when you see them. Over time, using the active voice will become second nature.

Of course, everyone needs some help along the way. Fortunately, we’ve come across some grammar checker tools that include a passive voice checker amongst their suite of goodies — and although premium versions of those programs cost, many offer a free edition.

Armed with this knowledge of passive voice, go forth and do some writing…as opposed to letting your writing do you!

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