Active and Passive Voices Would you rather others described you as active or passive?

Give your ideas the same opportunity!

Active voice:	Thomas chased the ball.
Passive voice:	The ball was chased.
Active voice:	Thomas chases the ball daily.
Passive voice:	The ball is chased daily.

Notice that the second sentence in each pair doesn't let readers know who's doing the chasing. The second pair's passive sentence, in fact, sounds a bit odd. In the passive voice, the subject of the sentence isn't the do-er of the action the verb expresses.

Passive voice:	The cookie jar is broken.
You can see why children would want to use the passive voice.
Passive voice:	My credit card was stolen.
You can see why sometimes adults need to use the passive voice.
Passive voice:	It was noted that the Monarch butterflies were dead.
In contrast, you can see how sometimes you need to use the active voice instead-after all, who's doing the noticing in that sentence?
Active voice:	The wedding guests noticed that the Monarch butterflies were dead.

Suddenly the sentence is more interesting and gives readers a better picture of the circumstances.