How to Reword a Sentence Without Any Passive Tenses
A sentence written in passive voice transforms the subject from a dynamic performer of an action to an inactive recipient. While occasionally using the passive voice is acceptable - in fact, the passive voice is preferable to the active voice in a few specific situations - overusing it can make your writing lifeless and confusing. Unless you have a specific reason for using the passive voice, use the active voice whenever possible.
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Instructions
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Identify the verb in your sentence, the word expressing action. Find physical actions such as play, swim, attack or write, or mental or emotional actions such as remember, ponder, love or dislike. Identify the passive sentence if the verb is paired with a form of "to be," such as is, are, were, was, be or been. For example, the phrase "was defeated" is passive.
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Identify the subject, the person or thing (noun) performing the action. In the sentence "In 1865, Robert E. Lee was defeated by Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox," the verb is "defeated." To identify the subject, figure out who or what is doing the defeating, in this case Ulysses S. Grant.
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Write the subject of your sentence as the first word or group of words in your sentence. For example, write "Ulysses S. Grant."
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Write the verb after the subject. In most cases, you will omit the form of "to be." For instance, don't write "Ulysses S. Grant WAS defeated" because he wasn't defeated; he was the one doing the defeating. Instead, write "Ulysses S. Grant defeated...."
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Write the direct object, the person or thing to whom or on whom the verb is being performed, usually the sentence's first noun when the sentence was passive. The direct object in our example is Robert E. Lee, as he began the sentence and was the one who was defeated, so make your new sentence "Ulysses S. Grant defeated Robert E. Lee...."
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Add any extra information that you want to include before or after the subject, depending on how you want to phrase the sentence. Write "In 1865, Ulysses S. Grant defeated Robert E. Lee at Appomattox" or "Ulysses S. Grant defeated Robert E. Lee at Appomattox in 1865." None of the extra information will make the sentence passive again.
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Reread your sentence to see if it flows well. Decide if by beginning the sentence with the subject, you are now emphasizing a noun that you consider less important. For instance, if the topic of your paper is Robert E. Lee, you might want him to come earlier in the sentence than Grant to emphasize his importance. In that case, write "Robert E. Lee" as the subject and find a single verb describing what he did at Appomattox, such as "surrendered" or "lost." Changing your verb to make Lee its performer is another way to make your sentence active.
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Tips & Warnings
In some passive sentences, the subject is unnamed. In this case, you will have to figure out who performed the action even though you did not name this person. If your sentence is "Native Americans were oppressed for centuries," you will need to decide who was performing the verb ("oppressed") even though you don't name the performer in your current sentence.
Although the active voice is usually better than the passive voice, there are some cases when passive is better, particularly when the subject of the sentence is unknown or unimportant. Despite being passive, "Johnson was acquitted on all counts" is better than "The jury acquitted Johnson on all counts" because Johnson is more important to the reader than the jury.
References
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