When to use passive voice
- Use passive voice when you do not wish to emphasize the subject of the sentence.
- Also use passive voice when you wish to emphasize what happened and the person or thing acting is unknown or unimportant.
In a passive clause, we usually use a phrase
beginning with by if we want to mention the agent–the person or thing that does the action, or that causes what happens.
• Water is also released into the atmosphere by plants through photosynthesis.
We normally make passive forms of a verb by using tenses of the auxiliary be followed by the past participle (=pp) of the verb. Here is a list of all the passive forms of an ordinary English verb, with their names.
