Paraphrasing · Voice

Voice in English paraphrasing

With this technique, the doer and the thing done change places. Change the voice when you want the sentence to start with a different thing. If your paragraph is about workers, start with workers; if it is about the technology, start with the technology. The passive is not more formal than the active — it is a way of choosing what the sentence is about.

The long versionwhat it is, what it costs, where it stops

9 examples6 moves and 3 worked rewrites

Guided practice3 steps, you write, then you compare

5 exercisesmeaning first, then production

Start here · the long version

What voice really asks you to do

Swapping which side of the action starts the sentence, so a paragraph can stay about the thing it is actually about.

The passive is not more formal. It is a choice of subject.

The most repeated piece of advice about the passive — that it sounds academic — is wrong, and following it produces the worst paragraphs in Task 2. The passive does exactly one thing: it lets you choose what the sentence starts with. “Technological advances have replaced workers” and “Workers have been replaced by technological advances” carry identical information. They differ only in what the sentence is about.

That matters because a paragraph should stay about one thing. If your body paragraph is about workers, then every sentence in it that can start with workers should. Readers follow a paragraph by its subjects, and a paragraph whose subject changes every sentence reads as a list of facts rather than as an argument — which is a Coherence problem, not a grammar one, and it is invisible if you are only checking your verbs.

The reverse move is just as useful and far rarer. Responses drift into the passive under time pressure and lose their argument inside it: three passive sentences in a row and nobody in the essay is doing anything to anybody. Turning one of them back into the active gives the paragraph a subject again, and usually gives the writer their position back with it.

How it is formed

Object to the front, the right form of “be” plus the past participle, old subject after “by”. The tense does not change.

Dropping the agent

“The plan was approved” is legitimate when nobody needs to know who approved it. In an argument about responsibility, they do.

No object, no passive

“Crime rose”, “the population grew”. There is nothing on the receiving end, so there is nothing to turn around.

The preposition survives

“take care of” becomes “be taken care of by”. Two prepositions in a row look wrong and are correct.

What it costs you to skip this

Not knowing it costs you a paraphrase technique and a cohesion tool at the same time. Overusing it costs more: an essay written mostly in the passive with the agents dropped reads as a writer avoiding commitment, and the examiner cannot find a position to assess. And an agent dropped in the wrong sentence quietly removes the responsibility the paragraph was arguing about — “dozens of youth centres have been closed” lets the councils that closed them disappear from a paragraph about council decisions.

Where it stops applying

Only sentences with an object can be turned around, which rules out a large share of the sentences in a typical response. Some verbs resist the passive even when they have one: “allow someone to do something” has no direct passive and has to be rewritten with a modal instead. And the passive is never the goal in itself — if turning a sentence around does not make the paragraph start with the thing it is about, leave it active.

Examples · the move in two sentences

A paraphrase changes the words and keeps the claim

That is the whole job, and it is harder than it sounds: the fastest way to lose marks is to write something in better English than the prompt that no longer says what the prompt said. Here is what this particular technique moves.

The original

Technological advances have replaced workers in many workplaces.

Voice

The paraphrase

Workers in many workplaces have been replaced by technological advances.

The object became the subject, and the old subject moved behind “by”. Nothing was added and nothing was removed — the sentence now simply begins with the people it is about. That change of starting point is the point, not the grammar.

When you need it
Change the voice when you want the sentence to start with a different thing. If your paragraph is about workers, start with workers; if it is about the technology, start with the technology. The passive is not more formal than the active — it is a way of choosing what the sentence is about.

The moves

What you can change, and where the meaning breaks

Not every move is equally safe. Three of these you can make without thinking; the last two are where paraphrases stop being paraphrases.

Active → passive

Safe move

Move the object to the front, add the right form of “be” plus the past participle, and put the old subject after “by”: “The council approved the plan” → “The plan was approved by the council”.

Passive → active

Safe move

The reverse move, and often the better one. Task 2 responses drift into the passive and lose their argument in it; turning one back gives the paragraph a subject again.

Keep the topic in the subject slot

Safe move

If the paragraph is about workers, every sentence in it should start with workers where possible. That is what the passive is for.

Drop the “by” phrase

Check as you go

When the doer is obvious or irrelevant, leave it out: “The plan was approved.” Only do it when the reader genuinely does not need to know who acted — in a responsibility argument, they do.

Intransitive verbs have no passive

Where meaning breaks

“Crime rose”, “the population grew”, “the meeting happened”. There is no object to promote, so there is nothing to turn around.

Do not stack passives

Where meaning breaks

Two or three in a row and nobody is doing anything in your essay. The examiner reads that as a writer hiding, not as formality.

Watch three · then do four

Follow every word that moved

Each example lists exactly what changed, so you can check the claim survived the journey.

Worked example · Voice

Original: Technological advances have replaced workers in many workplaces.

Paraphrase: Workers in many workplaces have been replaced by technological advances.

What moved: The object became the subject · have replaced → have been replaced · the old subject moved behind “by”

Why this works: Worth doing when the paragraph is about workers. Note that the present perfect survives the change intact: “have been replaced”.

Worked example · Voice

Original: Random searches allow the police to find illegal weapons.

Paraphrase: Illegal weapons can be found by the police during random searches.

What moved: The thing being looked for became the subject · allow … to find → can be found

Why this works: “Allow someone to do something” has no direct passive, so it was rewritten with a modal. When a verb resists the passive, look for the modal that carries the same meaning.

Worked example · Voice

Original: Several factors determine how well cement solidifies.

Paraphrase: How well cement solidifies is determined by several factors.

What moved: The whole clause “how well cement solidifies” became the subject.

Why this works: A clause can be promoted, not just a noun. This is the version to use when the paragraph is about cement rather than about the factors.

What goes wrong

The mistakes this technique produces

These are real sentences from a WeLearn classroom, not invented errors. Most of them are calques: English words in a Spanish shape, which is exactly what paraphrasing under time pressure produces.

Workers have been substituted at their jobs by technological improvements.

“Substitute” does not behave like “replace”. In careful English you substitute A *for* B, so this can be read as saying the workers were put in place of the technology. “Replaced by” says what was meant, without ambiguity.

Repaired: Workers have been replaced in their jobs by technological improvements.

That stage ought to be taken care by civil engineers.

The phrase is “take care *of*”, and the preposition has to survive the change: “be taken care of by”. Two prepositions in a row look wrong and are correct.

Repaired: That stage ought to be taken care of by civil engineers.

The crime rate was risen sharply after the reform.

“Rise” takes no object, so it has no passive at all. The only sentences that can be turned around are the ones with something on the receiving end.

Repaired: The crime rate rose sharply after the reform.

Now you try · with the scaffolding on

Build it one step at a time

Turn this around so the paragraph can stay on its subject — without letting the councils quietly disappear.

The material

Sentence: “Local councils have closed dozens of youth centres since 2010.” Your paragraph is about the centres, not about the councils.

Step 1Choose the new subject

The paragraph is about the centres. Write the noun phrase that will now start the sentence.

Your version0 words · minimum 3

3 more words before you can compare. Writing it yourself first is the whole exercise.

Step 2Build the verb

Step 3Decide about the agent, then write it all

Exercises · step 1, the meaning

Before you judge a rewrite, learn to spot what changed

Producing a paraphrase is the second skill. The first is noticing when a sentence that reads perfectly well has quietly stopped saying the same thing.

Step 1 · the meaning

Which one still says the same thing?

The sentence you have: Local councils have closed dozens of youth centres since 2010.

All three are written in good English. Only one of them makes the same claim as the original. Find it before you write a single paraphrase of your own.

Exercises · step 2, production

Choose the paraphrase that moves everything and changes nothing

Every wrong option here is wrong for its own reason, and it says so. Three of them are grammatical English — that is the point. Nothing on this page is scored automatically.

Paraphrase this: The government introduced a sugar tax in 2018.

Choose an option first

Paraphrase this: Researchers at the university have questioned these findings.

Choose an option first

Paraphrase this: Poor urban planning has caused most of these traffic problems.

Choose an option first

Paraphrase this: Volunteers plant thousands of trees in the city every spring.

Choose an option first

The other techniques