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Please help me change the voice of the following sentence:

I will finish the job by the end of this week.

My answer is:

The job will be finished by me by the end of this week.

However, I am debating if 'by me' is redundant. That is:

The job will be finished by the end of this week.

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2 Answers 2

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No, by me here is not redundant. It simply marks the agent(doer) of the action. It's different from the latter example that doesn't answer the who-question. Compare

The job will be finished by me by the end of this week.(We know you'll finish it)

The job will be finished by the end of this week. (This is ambiguous. It invites the unanswered who-question. We don't know who will do the job)

But anyway,

The job will be finished by me by the end of this week.

Is not a good writing. You should move the adverbial to the initial position.

By the end of this week, the job will be finished by me.

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    There is no compelling reason to move by the end of the week to the head of the sentence.
    – TimR
    Mar 27, 2017 at 12:03
  • @TRomano Grammatically, yes, there isn't. But consider the flow, I'm sure "By me by the end.." sounds ugly(though I'm not a native speaker). Mar 27, 2017 at 12:06
  • Having two prepositional phrases both headed by by doesn't sound as bad in actual practice as it may look on the page. The natural syntactic pause between the two phrases, together with their distinct intonational contours and rhythms, keep them separate. There isn't really a clash. In a natural context that would support the use of the passive here, by me would be isolated, almost like a parenthetic. I'm not going to delegate this task. The job will be finished, by me, by the end of the week.
    – TimR
    Mar 27, 2017 at 12:12
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Let's go through the following :

(1) Active voice : Someone will finish the job by the end of this week. (Here we don't know the doer of the action.)

Passive voice : The job will be finished by the end of this week.

(2) Active voice : I will finish the job by the end of this week. (Here, the doer of the action is known : 'I'.)

Passive voice : The job will be finished by me by the end of this week.

Hope, you have understood the difference.

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