Page 864 - Wordsmith A Guide to College Writing

active
The entire nation mourned when President John F. Kennedy

passive
was assassinated.

The shift is necessary because to stay in active voice the writer of the

sentence would have to take the focus away from Kennedy by writing
a sentence like this one: “The entire nation mourned when Lee Harvey

Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy.”

Writing Sentences in Active Voice

and Passive Voice

To avoid unnecessary shifts between active voice and passive voice,
you need to be able to recognize and write sentences in both voices.

The next section of the chapter gives you practice in switching from

passive to active voice and from active to passive voice.

Switching from Passive Voice to Active

Voice

To switch from passive voice to active voice, first determine who or
what acts upon the subject of the sentence. Then rewrite the sentence

to make that actor the subject.