Active and Passive Voice

Understanding the difference between the use of active and passive voice will help you better your skills at speech writing and delivery. Using the active voice in your speech will provide a more engaging presentation, and will keep the audience's attention. The active voice allows for more vivid language that paints a picture in the minds of the audience, and will help them understand what you are trying to get at.

To help you understand the difference between active and passive voice usage in more detail, visit these sites:

Grammar Handbook: Active and Passive Voice
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/cws/wworkshop/active.htm

While originally intended for English students, this page offers some good guidelines between the two voices.

Active And Passive Voice
http://www.restena.lu/lmr/educonln/english/voice.html

A great site that asks you to turn several sentences from the active voice to the passive voice, and gives you the opportunity to correct your answers.

Active and Passive Voice
http://www.english.uwosh.edu/wcenter/voice.html

From the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, this page gives students a clear understanding of the two voices.

Active and Passive Verb Voice
http://www.tc.cc.va.us/WRITCENT/handouts/grammar/verbvoic.htm

This page discusses the concept of voice, and shows how it applies to transitive or action verbs.

Editing For Action
http://www.scopeonline.com/classes/demo/dwr1/act_voce.htm

This page gives you some guidelines between the differences between active and passive voices, and asks you to edit a series of sentences from the passive to the active voice.