Shifting Voice and Moods

Anytime a sentence has more than one verb and the voice of the verbs is not the same, there is a shift in voice.

Shifting from active to passive voice, or vice versa, in a sentence should be avoided when possible.

When the children turned on the TV, a buzzing sound was heard.

This sentence starts in the active voice, then changes to passive.

To fix this, you need to either make both verbs active or both verbs passive.

Both active: When the children turned on the TV, they heard a buzzing sound.

Both passive: When the tv was turned on by the children, a buzzing sound was heard.

For example, if you are using the passive voice to keep focus on the subject

Example: Two men escaped from prison yesterday but were captured immediately.

These types of changes are okay. It is only when there is no reason for the change that you must correct it.

A shift in the verb mood occurs when more than one mood is used in one sentence.

Unnecessary shifts in mood should be avoided.

Example: Call me when you get home, and then you should start your homework. (This starts in the imperative mood, and shifts to the indicative).

To correct an unnecessary shift in mood, reword the sentence so that both verbs are in the same mood.

Example: Call me when you get home, and then you should start your homework. Change to: Call me when you get home, and then start your homework.

In this example, both verbs are changed to the imperative mood.