General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Tea Party Members Conspiring Armed Overthrow of Government [View all]coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)a sentence is placed where the natural object of a sentence would appear, were the writer using the 'active voice.' (I used the passive voice in the preceding sentence, but am using the active voice in this parenthetical sentence. If I were using the passive voice on the first parenthetical sentence, I would have written, "The passive voice was used by me in the preceding sentence, but the active voice is being used in this parenthetical sentence."
Gramatically, the passive is formed by a conjugated form of the verb 'to be,' the past participle of the action verb, 'by' and the subject of the sentence. (See how 'is formed' is a passive construction?)
Writers and critics tend to view the passive voice as weaker stylistically, because the reader must wait until the end of the sentence to find out the subject of the sentence. About the only argument for using the passive voice is when the writer wishes to emphasisze the object by putting it first in the sentence. The passive voice makes for flabby writing.
Please note that passive voice has NOTHING to do with verb tense necessarily. One can use past passive, present passive or future passive. Or perhaps I should say, "The passive voice was used at certain points in the past, is being used at the moment and will be used at some point in the future"