Identifying Passive Voice in Writing
For your first exercise, please read the following paragraph and correct the passive voice by making the sentence active. Just remember to ask "Who did the action?" The "doer" of the action should be the subject of the sentence. If you don't know who did the action, make up a logical answer.
Yesterday, my friend and I went to my cousin's baseball game. We had a great time, at first.Then, my cousin was hit in the eye when he wasn't paying attention. My cousin always seems to find trouble, or in this case, trouble found him. However, the ambulance was called, and he went to the hospital. He said the doctors were very pleasant, but he didn't like his nurse. Nevertheless, she told my cousin that he needed stitches. Instead, his cut was glued with some sort of new glue for skin.This way, he won't have a scar. In the meantime, the game was finished without him.
Here, is a second paragraph. This time, you have to find the passive sentences and correct them too. Good Luck! (Hint: There are three passive sentences to correct.)
When I was little, I had webbed feet. Really, my toes were linked together, and it looked like I had duck feet. I used to hate it because all the other kids called me Waddle. My feelings were hurt every time they called me that, and I always answered with a mean comment. One day, everything changed. I was swimming in the pool at school with a few other classmates when I noticed something. I could swim faster than they could. Many races were won in the swimming pool because of those webbed feet.
Check out these funny signs
(They have examples of passive voice)
Can you find them?
Sometimes people use passive voice when the person doing the action is irrelevant or completely unknown. Here are a few signs that demonstrate this.
