The Passive Voice

Used in context with the article:Who Created the Internet? It’s a Tangled Web

written by David L. Chandler

Context of the passive voice

Newspaper headlinesSigns

Pres

s

Relig

ion

Skills an

d Hob

bies

Popu

lar L

ore

Gover

nmen

t Doc

umen

ts

Acad

emic

0

20

40

60

80

100

ActivePassive

Percentage of Active and Passive Voice usage in the Brown Corpus (Francis & Kucera, 1982, p.544,

cited in Kennedy, 2003)

Genre

Active vs. Passive

Tim Berners Lee created HTML. HTML was created by Tim Berners Lee..

Active

E-mail was invented by Ray Tomlinson.Ray Tomlinson invented E-mail

Passive

subject verb object subject to be past participle

Simple Present

Present Progressive

Simple Past

Passive Verb Forms

Past Progressive

Future

Web pages are designed every day.

A web page is being designed right now.

E-mail was invented by Ray Tomlinson.

E-mail was being used in the 1970s.

The Internet is going to be used in the future.

Present Perfect Millions of videos have been uploaded to YouTube.

Passive Voice uses TO BE

Web pages are designed every day.

A web page is being designed right now.

E-mail was invented by Ray Tomlinson.

E-mail was being used in the 1970s.

Google is going to be used in the future.

Millions of videos have been uploaded to YouTube.

Simple Present

Present Progressive

Simple Past

Past Progressive

Future

Present Perfect

Passive uses a PAST PARTICIPLE

Web pages are designed every day.

A web page is being designed right now.

E-mail was invented by Ray Tomlinson.

E-mail was being used in the 1970s.

Google is going to be used in the future.

Millions of videos have been uploaded to YouTube.

Simple Present

Present Progressive

Simple Past

Past Progressive

Future

Present Perfect

Questions forms in the PASSIVE

Are web pages designed ever day?

Is a web page being designed right now?

Was email invented by Ray Tomlinson?

Is google going to be used in the future?

How are web pages designed ever day?

Where is a web page being designed right now?

When was email invented by Ray Tomlinson?

How is Google going to be used in the future?

Simple Present

Present Progressive

Simple Past

Future

Using a –by phrase

The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo da Vinci.

The light bulb was invented by Thomas Edison.

The airplane was invented by Alberto Santos Dumont

Modals

The internet used to search for informationbe

The internet used to search for information.

can maycould might must better

have been

maycould might

Reasons to use the passive voice

Emphasize

E-mail was invented in the 1970s.HTML is the language used to create web pages.

Function of the passive voice

Conceal

Function of the passive voice

Unimportant | Unknown

Function of the passive voice

Obvious