Tip 712: Keeping Things Short, Part IVb

From the Writing Workshops: Keeping Things Short, Part IVb

We promised to list the three warning flags of passive voice. 

Your first warning flag is some form of the verb “to be.” 

Look at the sentence: The report was written by Sarah. Is there any one of the eight forms of “to be”: is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been? 

Yup: Was as in “was written.” 

If you have some form of the verb “to be,” continue to the second warning flag. If you don’t, you probably don’t have passive voice. 

Your second warning flag is when the word describing the action ends in “-ed,” “-en,” or some variation. (Grammarians call this a past participle, but don’t worry about that. That won’t be on the test.) 

The report was written by Sarah. 

What’s the word describing the action? “Written.” What’s the ending? “—en.” Bingo. You’ve picked up the second warning flag. 

Your third warning flag is how, when you get to the word describing the action, you can ask yourself, “By whom?” or “By what?” 

Think of our example: The report was written by Sarah. 

When you get to the word describing the action, “written,” can you ask yourself “By whom?” Absolutely. That’s a natural question. Who did it? Who wrote the report? 

If you find all three, you probably have passive voice. We’ll explore rewriting passive into active next week.
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