Intent

Convert a passive verb to an active verb.

Motivation

People often express their ideas using passive voice, especially when speaking of past events with past tense verbs. So, passive expressions are a typical part of ordinary conversation and written discourse. However, a sentence that uses passive voice may be missing its true subject.

a mouse was eaten (by what?)
a mouse was eaten by a cat

Notice that even when a missing subject has been discovered, passive voice displaces the subject from its normal location at the beginning of a sentence. You can correct both of these deficiencies using active voice for each verb.

Applicability

Use active voice when

• you’ve extracted a sentence with an isolated verb, but
• you discover that the verb uses passive voice.

Considerations

Every passive expression has a corresponding active expression. An active verb strengthens a statement and forces the discovery of its true subject. An active verb forces the true subject to move to its normal place at the beginning of a sentence.

a cat ate a mouse
a cat eats a mouse

Putting the true subject at the beginning of a sentence is especially useful for transitive verbs, which indicate action or a relationship. The subject is the initiator of an action or a principal participant in a relationship.

Object-oriented designers often use present tense verbs with active voice to describe the responsibilities of collaborators in object systems.

Consequences

A normal form sentence has an active verb with a complete predicate, singular number, affirmative polarity, indicative mood, and appropriate tense.