The Passive Voice
[ Up ] [ Comma Splices ] [ Faulty Comparison ] [ Faulty Coordination ] [ Faulty Parallelism ] [ Faulty Predication ] [ Fused Sentences ] [ Mixed Construction ] [ The Passive Voice ] [ Run-on Sentences ] [ Sentence Fragments ]

 

Voice is a feature of transitive verbs (verbs that take an object) and indicates whether the subject of a sentence is the actor or the receiver of the action. When the subject is acting, the verb is in the active voice; when the subject is being acted upon, the verb is in the passive voice. The passive voice is formed by the verb "to be" plus the past participle of a given verb. Avoid using the passive voice, unless you have a good reason.

Examples of This Trouble

Active Voice: The twins climbed the tallest mountain in the province.
Passive Voice: The tallest mountain in the province was climbed by the twins.

Active Voice: I accidentally smashed grandmother’s fine china vase.
Passive Voice: Grandmother’s fine china vase was accidentally smashed by me.

Writers favour the active voice in their writing, because the active voice is less wordy and more lively than the passive. To say that "the gun was shot" (passive voice) does not have the force of action that "Billy Bob shot the gun" has. In the first sentence, the gun is all alone, with no one performing the act of shooting. What’s more, if you add "by Billy Bob," you don’t invigorate this passive version. The passive voice verb requires more words, but produces a weaker effect than the vigorous and emphatic active voice does.

Return

Legitimate Uses of the Passive Voice

A hallmark of the passive voice is that it may conceal the subject who is responsible for the action. Those in power will quite often couch their announcements in the passive voice in order to avoid taking responsibility for what they have done. A cabinet minister may announce that "it is recommended that the costs of health care be dramatically reduced over the next fiscal year." Who is doing the recommending in this sentence? Who is taking responsibility for the action in this sentence?

Now, even though you should not overuse the passive voice, it does have some legitimate uses:

  1. In scientific writing, the passive voice is used to highlight the object being examined, without emphasizing the persons doing the examining. (This sentence’s verb has a passive voice)
  2. In journalism, the passive voice enables the reporter to protect the confidentiality of his sources and informants.
  3. When the doer of the action is unknown, use the passive voice: 
    The sandals were made in China.
  4. Use the passive voice to set apart the doer of the action from the rest of the sentence:
    The charity casino was made a success by the town’s services clubs.
Return

How to Fix the Problem

To change a sentence from passive to active voice, simply turn the subject of the verb into a direct or indirect object and turn the performer of the action into the subject of the sentence.

Passive: The ancient oak tree was struck by a bolt of lightning.
(The subject of the sentence is "the ancient oak tree," but it is not performing the action. The performer of the action in this sentence is "a bolt of lightning." Thus, make "a bolt of lightning" the subject of the sentence.)
Active: A bolt of lightning struck the ancient tree.

Return