- Grammatical voice is a verb property that shows whether a verb’s subject is acting or being acted upon.
- The passive voice shows that the subject is receiving the verb’s action rather than performing it. It often uses a form of to be plus the past participle of the verb.
- The use of the passive voice is not grammatically incorrect. Knowing how to use it appropriately is important for clear writing, however.
- Use the passive voice when the emphasis in a sentence should be on the recipient of an action or on the action itself or when the performer of an action is unknown.
- Use the active voice when it makes your sentence clearer, more natural, or more direct.
The passive voice is one of the two grammatical voices that verbs can have. It shows that the subject of a clause or sentence is receiving the action expressed by the verb, rather than performing it.
The use of the passive voice is often presented by teachers and professors as a bad writing habit. Or, to put that in the active voice: Teachers and professors across the English-speaking world often present the use of the passive voice as a bad writing habit. But the passive voice is not grammatically incorrect and, in fact, is often useful and appropriate in writing.
Here, we’ll provide guidelines for when to use the passive voice and when it’s better to avoid it.
Table of contents
The active voice vs. the passive voice
How to identify the passive voice
How to change the passive voice to the active
Creative uses of the passive voice
When to avoid the passive voice
What is the passive voice?
The passive voice is one of the two types of grammatical voice. Voice, like tense, is a property that verbs have. Voice shows whether the subject of a sentence is performing or receiving the verb’s action. With the passive voice, the subject is acted upon by some other performer of the verb.
The formula for the passive voice is [subject]+[some form of the verb to be]+[past participle of a transitive verb]+[optional prepositional phrase].
Here are two examples of sentences with verbs in the passive voice:
Why is using the passive voice controversial?
The use of the passive voice is controversial because, when it’s used unnecessarily or excessively, the passive voice can make writing sound jargony, impersonal, or even insincere. For these reasons and to keep their sentences as clear, direct, and concise as possible, writers and students are often advised to avoid the passive voice altogether. Here is an example of a sentence that uses the passive voice in a way that is a bit awkward and unwieldy:
Although grammatically correct, the above sentence can be rewritten without the passive voice in a way that means exactly the same thing, just more directly:
The meaning hasn’t changed, but the subject has; in the first, passive voice sentence, the subject, I, is receiving the action of the verb, was assigned. The reason the second sentence reads better is that the performer of the action, supervisor, has become the subject of the sentence, while the recipient of the action, me, has become the indirect object—a much more natural arrangement for a case like this, where there’s a clear entity performing the verb’s action and a clear recipient of that action.
There are, however, grammatical situations in which it makes sense to use the passive voice. For example, what if the recipient of the action is more important to the meaning of a sentence than the performer? Here’s a sentence like that:
The subject of this passive voice sentence, street, receives the action of the verb, is resealed. But in this case, the subject is the main focus of the sentence—it’s a fact about the street, not about whoever reseals it. In fact, the performer of the verb (perhaps a city or township) is so unimportant here that it doesn’t even need to be in the sentence.
The active voice vs. the passive voice
When a verb is in the active voice, the subject of the sentence performs the action or inhabits the state expressed by the verb.
The formula for a sentence in the active voice is [subject]+[verb (performed by the subject)]+[optional object]. Here’s an example:
As we discussed earlier, in a passive voice construction, the subject receives the action of the verb instead of performing it. So, if we want to change the above example sentence from the active voice into the passive voice, we need to make the recipient of the action—the ball—into the subject of the new sentence:
The end of that sentence, by Chester, is a prepositional phrase that tells you who the performer of the action is. But even though Chester is the one doing the kicking, he’s no longer the grammatical subject. A passive voice construction can even drop him from the sentence entirely:
This kind of sentence demonstrates why the active voice is generally preferred—most of the time, the active voice is the right choice for stronger and more direct writing. However, there are plenty of situations where the passive voice comes in handy, as we’ll talk more about below.
How to identify the passive voice
Remember the formula for identifying the passive voice? It’s [subject]+[some form of the verb to be]+[past participle of a transitive verb]+[optional prepositional phrase]. Sometimes, applying that formula to a sentence that at first glance looks like it’s in the passive voice can reveal that it isn’t the passive voice at all. Here are two examples of the kinds of sentences that are often mistaken for being in the passive voice:
However, both of the sentences above are actually written in the active voice. Notice that neither of them contains a past participle, and neither subject is receiving a verb’s action.
The first uses a form of the verb to be (is) and has an element after the verb (kicking) that could easily replace the subject, which is why it looks a little like the passive voice. But in this case, is is a linking verb, and kicking is a subject complement.
The second sentence also uses a form of to be (were), and its subject (stars) appears after the verb. But it begins with the word there. In sentences that start with there is or there are, there is a grammatical expletive, or dummy noun—a word that doesn’t have a meaning of its own (in this context) but acts as a sort of functional stand-in for a noun. When you ignore the dummy and look at the real subject, you can see that this sentence, which could be simplified as “Stars are visible,” is another case with a subject, linking verb, and subject complement.
Let’s take a look at a couple of similar sentences that are in the passive voice:
These tick all the boxes for passive voice that we’ve been talking about: subjects that receive the action (Chester, stars), forms of to be (was, were), past participles (kicked, strung), and one optional prepositional phrase (by a donkey).
How to change the passive voice to the active
If you look over a piece of your writing and find that you have overused the passive voice or used it in places where the active voice would be more appropriate, it’s easy to change sentences from the passive to the active. Here are the steps, followed by a couple of examples of sentences using them to become active:
- Identify the subject, verb, and performer of the verb’s action (either the object of a preposition like by or implied). In the first example below, the subject officers is implied in the passive voice version but not named in the active voice version.
- Move the performer into the subject’s position.
- Change the verb from the past participle to the appropriate conjugation.
- Move the original subject into the object position.
Passive: Multiple parking citations were issued on the day of the street fair.
Active: Officers issued multiple parking citations on the day of the street fair.
Passive: The children were dropped off at the corner by the bus driver.
Active: The bus driver dropped the children off at the corner.
When to use the passive voice
There are times when the passive voice does a better job than the active voice of presenting an idea, especially when the performer of the action of a sentence’s verb is very general or diffuse, is unknown, or should get less emphasis than the recipient of that action. These can include formal, professional, and legal contexts as well as plenty of casual, everyday ones. Here are some common situations where use of the passive voice is acceptable or desirable.
In broad statements about widely held opinions or social norms
The passive voice comes in handy for general statements about beliefs and norms. Here’s an example:
This sentence communicates that its writer believes enough people share the opinion that tipping less than 20 percent is rude to qualify as a consensus. In other words, the performer of the action—the people doing the considering—is so general that it can be left out of the sentence entirely.
In statements about actions with unknown doers
When you’re reporting that a crime with an unknown perpetrator, or any other kind of action the performer of which is unknown, using the passive voice makes sense:
If you knew who stole the car, you might be closer to getting it back. The passive voice here emphasizes the stolen item and the action of theft.
The emphasis here is on the grass, which presumably is observably shorter. Someone must have cut it, but whoever that was is not the concern of this sentence.
In scientific contexts
Here’s an example of the passive voice being useful in a scientific context:
Who placed the rat in the maze? Scientists, most likely. But that’s less important than the experiment they’re conducting.
In any other situation where you want to keep the focus on an action and/or the recipient of the action
How many people can remember off the top of their head who swears in presidents? Clearly, the occasion of swearing in the commander in chief is the thing to emphasize here.
In this case, we know what brought about the action: the experience of traveling alone in South America. But the thing the sentence most urgently wants us to know is that a person, Cleo, had an important thing happen to them. So making the recipient of the action (Cleo) the subject of the sentence, using the passive voice, and tucking the performer of the action (the experience) after the action as the object of the preposition by makes sense.
In any other case where the active voice is awkward
Knowing how to turn the passive voice into the active voice in your sentences is a valuable skill for making your writing clearer a lot of the time. But here are some further examples of sentences where the passive voice is more natural and clearer for one of the reasons we’ve discussed, paired with examples of how rewriting them in the active voice renders them sterile, awkward, or syntactically contorted.
Passive: Bob Dylan was injured in a motorcycle accident.
Active: A motorcycle accident injured Bob Dylan.
Passive: Elvis is rumored to be alive.
Active: People rumor Elvis to be alive.
Passive: Don’t be fooled!
Active: Don’t allow anything to fool you!
Creative uses of the passive voice
Sometimes, writers take advantage of the lack of clarity or shift in emphasis the passive voice provides for creative purposes. Here are some uses for the passive voice as a stylistic decision that suits the author’s goals.
Beating around the bush
The novelist Jane Austen was a master of poking fun at her characters so euphemistically that it seemed almost polite, and the passive voice was one of her favorite methods for doing that. Here’s an example:
Austen could have recast this sentence in the active voice like so:
Though she probably meant something closer to:
Directing the reader’s attention
This is like the grass getting cut or the president being sworn in: The recipient of the action of the verb is more important than the performer of the action:
You could invert the author’s sentence to say “Historians evoked that treasure” and so on, but García Márquez wanted to intrigue readers with the treasure and corpse rather than make them think about historians, and he used the passive voice to make that happen.
When to avoid the passive voice
As we’ve seen, the passive voice has its uses. However, it is very easy to overuse or misuse in most kinds of writing, and it can sap your writing of its energy. The trick is learning how to recognize the kinds of sentences in which the passive voice should be avoided in favor of the active voice.
For clarity and energy
The passive voice can make it harder for the reader to understand what is being said or what produced the experience being discussed, while the active voice is generally more direct and dynamic. Notice the difference between these examples:
Passive: The dinner was planned and all the guests invited.
Active: The host planned the dinner and invited all the guests.
To reduce wordiness
Many sentences in the passive voice include the performer of the verb’s action as the object in a prepositional phrase beginning with by. Avoiding that kind of construction cuts down on the number of words you use to express an idea in your writing:
Passive: I was given a cameo ring by my grandmother.
Active: My grandmother gave me a cameo ring.
In academic writing
Academic writing, which deals with complex subjects and can be inclined toward vagueness and jargon to begin with, is particularly susceptible to overuse of the passive voice. Look out for the following kinds of passive constructions:
Passive: The data that had been collected by the researcher was revealed to be faulty from an ethical point of view, and the study was retracted by the journal.
Active: Reviewers discovered that the researcher’s data collection practices failed to meet ethical standards, and the journal retracted the study.
To take responsibility
Sometimes, someone wants to acknowledge that something unsavory happened without making it crystal clear who was at fault. Here is a classic passive voice example and an active voice version in which the mistake makers demonstrate accountability:
Passive: Mistakes were made.
Active: We made mistakes.
The passive voice gets a bad rap, and it’s true that most of the time, especially if you’re writing anything with a definitive subject that is performing an action, you’re better off using the active voice. However, there are many situations in your writing that the passive voice is tailor-made for. Knowing when the passive voice is called for and when to avoid it is a hallmark of a good writer.
Passive voice FAQs
What is the passive voice?
The passive voice is the grammatical voice that shows that the subject of a clause or sentence is receiving the verb’s action rather than performing it. It often uses a form of to be plus the past participle of the main verb.
When is it OK to use the passive voice?
It’s acceptable and often advisable to use the passive voice in sentences where you want the main focus to be on the action of the verb and/or the recipient of that action. These sentences are often general statements about beliefs and norms or statements where the performer of the verb’s action is unknown and often in legal or scientific contexts.
When should you avoid the passive voice?
It is better to avoid the passive voice and use the active voice in most writing, especially when you want to be clear, concise, direct, dynamic, and/or engaging. It’s also important to be aware that there is a tendency to overuse the passive voice in academic and corporate contexts as well as to avoid responsibility for errors.
