Grammatical voice describes how a clause presents the relationship between its subject and the verb. English commonly distinguishes active and passive voice.
The same event in two voices
- Active voice. The crew repaired the gate. The crew is the subject and does the repairing. The gate is the direct object.
- Passive voice. The gate was repaired by the crew. The gate is now the subject. The verb group is was repaired, and by the crew names who did the work.
How to choose a voice
Use the active when the reader needs to know who acted, as in The crew repaired the gate. Use the passive when the gate is already the topic or the actor is unknown or unimportant, as in The gate was repaired yesterday. Both versions can describe the same event.
