Verb Tense 
by EssayEdge

Changing Passive Voice to Active Voice:

If you want to change a passive-voice sentence to active voice, find the agent in the phrase, the person or thing that is performing the action expressed in the verb. Make that agent the subject of the sentence, and change the verb accordingly. For many instances of the passive voice in your essay, you can follow these steps:

1. Do a global search for the words “was” and then “were.” These words often indicate the passive voice.

2. Cross out the “was” or the “were.”

3. Add -ed to the verb that follows “was” or “were.”

4. If that changed verb does not make grammatical sense, it is an irregular verb, so change it to the simple past tense.

5. Rewrite the sentence around the new active-voice verb.

 From ESSAYS THAT WILL GET YOU INTO COLLEGE, by Amy Burnham, Daniel Kaufman, and Chris Dowhan.
Copyright 1998 by Dan Kaufman.  Reprinted by arrangement with Barron's Educational Series, Inc.