To quickly determine passive vs. active voice, you can add the phrase, “by zombies” to the end of the sentence.
If it’s clear the zombies are doing the action (subject), then the content is passive voice. Otherwise, if the zombies are an adverbial phrase, the sentence is in active voice.
Passive voice: “Content is synced by zombies”
Active voice: “NotesHub syncs the content by zombies”
When I started grad school and was learning how to write effectively, I struggled with passive/active voice differentiation… until I learned the zombies tip. It’s so absurd that you can’t forget it, and it’s simple enough to differentiate the two in a split second!
If it’s clear the zombies are doing the action (subject), then the content is passive voice. Otherwise, if the zombies are an adverbial phrase, the sentence is in active voice.
Passive voice: “Content is synced by zombies”
Active voice: “NotesHub syncs the content by zombies”