How to Use Microsoft Word’s Passive Voice Tool. After adding passive voice to your proofing options, you can run the Spelling & Grammar check and view the readability statistics with passive voice. Note that the readability statistics won’t appear until after the Spelling & Grammar check. Passive Voice Check - Word 2016 - Windows Has anyone found how to check for Passive Voice in Word 2016? This feature is missing or hard to find and I found this useful for writing my documents!
“Prefer active voice” may be the single most frequently dispensed injunction to improve writing. Strunk and White, George Orwell, and all student handbooks of the past 50 years extol the virtue of active verbs.
But two problems often go unremarked:
- Students cannot reliably identify passive constructions in their own work. How then are they to follow this sage advice?
- In a number of rhetorical situations, passive voice is preferable to active voice—though most beginning writers cannot reliably identify these exceptions either. (Ironically, my opening sentence above includes a judicious use of the passive. Did you notice?)
The free Writing Reviser Google Doc Add-on solves both these problems.
By making a simple menu selection, students can see all the passive verbs in their own essays. And by referring to the explanatory text, students learn to determine whether or not an active verb would be preferable to the passive in each instance. In other words, rather than simply “correcting mistakes,” Writing Reviser encourages thoughtful reflection, helping students begin to think like experienced writers and to gradually internalize the same informed judgments.
Understanding active and passive verbs is just one of the many ways Writing Reviser enhances student writing.
Add Writing Reviser to your Google Docs today for free. Learn more about the Writing Reviser—and our complete suite of writing tools from Curriculum Pathways—at WritingNavigator.com.
All Writing Navigator tools are also available on the Curriculum Pathways website and as a free iPad app!
Looking for more resources that help students with passive voice?
Passive Voice Checker
Curriculum Pathways includes a number of engaging assignments on active vs. passive verbs. In one of these, students write two similar essays: one with passive verbs in which they try to deceive the reader, and one with active verbs in which they try to clarify the truth. In addition to the reliably amusing challenge, intentionally using passive verbs—and observing the impact—is a thought-provoking way to solidify the active-passive distinction. And Writing Reviser allows students to verify that they’ve used the active and passive verbs specified in the directions.
Check out these Writing Reviser resources on active and passive verbs: