This sentence is in the passive voice because the subject of the sentence is passive. Or we can say that the verb ( was broken) describes something that was done to the subject ( window). Now the subject of the sentence ( window) doesn’t do the action-it receives the action, is acted upon ( was broken). Obviously this sentence contains the same information as the original sentence, but it has been rearranged. Now let’s consider another way to arrange this sentence. We say that this sentence is active or in the active voice because the subject is active-the subject does something. In this sentence the subject ( Jack) does the action ( broke), or the other way to say it is that the verb ( broke) describes what the subject ( Jack) does. Or another way to look at it is do we want the verb to describe what the subject does or to describe something that is done to the subject? Consider the following sentences. So, what is voice anyway? Voice is simply the name we have given to a grammatical choice we can make in sentence structure-whether we want the subject of a sentence to be the doer of the action in the sentence or whether we want the subject of the sentence to be the receiver of the action. The trick is in deciding what those situations are. The passive voice is more desirable than the active voice in certain situations. Whether you choose to write in the active voice or the passive voice depends entirely on what you choose to reveal or emphasize in the sentences you write. You probably have been told at some point in your school career that you should write in the active voice or that you should write active sentences that they are in some way more desirable than passive sentences.
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