How to Change Passive Voice to Active Voice

Passive voice verbs contain a form of "to be" and a past participle. You can change passive voice to active voice by returning to the basic noun/verb rule in the sentence. Place the action verb after the noun, and you are on your way to converting passive voice to active.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

1. Identify a passive voice sentence. You can identify passive voice construction from the trigger words, "be, is, was, were, by," and so forth. For example, "The Grand Canyon was visited by tourists."

2. Identify the noun in the sentence.

3. Move the noun in the sentence to the front of the sentence.

4. Place the action verb immediately after the noun.

5. Remove past tense references, and passive voice trigger words such as "be, by, were, was, is..."

6. Rewrite the remainder of the sentence. For example, "Tourists visit the Grand Canyon."

7. Review two more examples. The breakfast was eaten by my daughter. (Passive Voice Construction). My daughter ate breakfast (Active Voice Construction). Ten pounds were lost by me (Passive Voice Construction). I lost 10 pounds (Active Voice Construction).

Tips & Warnings

• Remember the basic sentence structure noun / verb rule.