Aug 16, 2012 / Language & Grammar

Recognizing Passive Voice

About a year ago, I wrote a piece about the distinction between the active and the passive voice, but going on the assumption that I’ve had a lot of reader turnover over a year’s time, I thought a refresher might be useful.

When writing in the active voice, the subject of the sentence is clearly the one doing the verb. In the passive voice, the subject of the sentence is sort of buried. So:

Active: I accidentally left three pounds of scallops in the trunk of your car overnight.

Passive: Three pounds of scallops were accidentally left in the trunk of your car overnight.

In the first case, the “doer” of the action is front and center, and it’s clear who befouled the trunk with seafood. In the second, the action is emphasized over the person performing it, sometimes with the intention of being vague about who did the action.

If you’re unsure whether a sentence is written in the passive voice or not, you can look for these things:

  • A form of the verb “to be”
  • A past participle (usually the -ed form of a verb)
  • Optionally the word “by” followed by a noun

Some examples:

Be verb Past Participle by noun
is bludgeoned by the bludger
was courted by Parsifal
is being contacted by Mildred
has been annihilated by the Cubs
will be inoculated by the nurse

It’s important to know that sentences that use “be” verbs aren’t always passive. “I am hungry” uses the active voice; it’s clear who’s hungry in that sentence. You have to look for both the “be” verb and the past participle to identify sentences written in the passive voice, and remember that the “by” is optional.

Writing instructors tend to discourage use of the passive voice for a few reasons:

  • It tends to add extra words to your sentences. Compare “Bocephus jumped over the hedge” to “The hedge was jumped over by Bocephus.”
  • It leads to vagueness about who did the action (especially when the “by” bit is left off).
  • It changes the normal word order in a sentence, moving the subject after the verb, which can be a little harder to parse.

Sometimes, using the passive voice is actually desirable, though. For example, in a sentence above, I wrote that “the action is emphasized over the person performing it.” In this case, what’s important isn’t who is emphasizing the action but the fact of the emphasis of the action. It would have been strange to have written “the writer emphasizes the action over the person performing it” in the context above. We don’t care about the writer here. We care about what she’s doing, so let’s shine a spotlight on the verb rather than the subject by using the passive voice.

As you write, pay attention to sentences that wind up following the passive voice formula given in the table above. If you find one, take a moment to think about whether the sentence is stronger or weaker for using the passive voice. If the “doer” is important, switch the sentence to the active voice and see if it reads a little better. If the action is more important than the subject or if they’re on equal footing but the sentence sounds better rhythmically in the passive voice, feel free to try the passive on for size instead.

UPDATE: See this comment for a clarification about subjects and the passive voice and a link to a much more technical explanation of sentence subjects. Also check the comments if you want to see this grammar nerd get busted for using the accursed dangling modifier. 🙂

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  2. Can’t ever get too many lessons in using the active voice…thanks! I’ve been working on an editing job for someone from another country. The original piece relies heavily on passive voice. I’m wondering if there’s a cultural bias toward that outside the US.

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  7. Thank you! Much appreciated! Haven’t thought of that since Linguistics 315…quite possibly the hardest subject for any English major to master precicely!

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  9. Reblogged this on Writings & Reminisces and commented:
    As I think I’ve mentioned at some point, I occasionally discuss language on this blog. In this case, I’m simply re-blogging an excellent blog on Recognizing Passive Voice, a bugaboo for many of us writers.

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  13. Reblogged this on The Paranoid Idealist and commented:
    Beyond my passion for social justice and innovation, I am a language nerd and lover of writing in general. This post, along with some of its comments and clarifications, are a great explanation of the passive voice, which I constantly have to keep an eye out for in my own writing. Good to know, though, that it can sometimes be a strength as well!

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    1. Dear anchoredrite, you have a subject-verb agreement error in the sentence beginning “This post.” The intervening phrase (“along with…clarifications”) tricked you into using “are.” The actual subject of your main clause is “post.” The verb should be “is.” Fortunately, you correctly used the singular noun in the phrase “a great explanation,” to match the singular subject “post.”

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      1. Thank you for the clarification docauntjane. I had wondered about the correct subject-verb agreement when I wrote that. I like your blog! Very useful and well-written.

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  14. Thanks Daryl that was interesting good to think on, to be honest, I speak from the heart, I hope that is not passive, at least it is not were it counts.

    Christian Love from both of us Anne.

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  15. The passive voice changes the subject? I’ll have to go back and look again. I didn’t know that. In the meantime, I’ll just say that I love misplaced and dangling modifiers, and I’m sorry I missed yours. Also, because the terms are never mentioned in the material I teach, I never remember the terms “active” and “passive” so I just tell my students to avoid helping verbs whenever possible. (And not as in “Don’t help the verb!” but as in “Avoid verbs that help the main verb!” — just in case there was some confusion.)

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    1. 1. Your advice would have confused me had I not always known that I was a natural-born grammarian.
      2. Had I not always known that I was a natural-born grammarian, I would have been confused by your advice.
      Which of the the above sentences is less offensive?
      Which sentence conveys the intended message more clearly?
      I believe it is the second sentence, where a passive voice construction has been used, is both less offensive and puts the focus on the main point being made.
      I could have written, “…where I used a passive voice construction”, but to my ear, that makes me sound pompous, whereas …”where a passive voice construction has been used” takes “me” out of the picture (and therefore reduces the pomposity factor), and makes the statement more impersonal.
      Use of the passive voice is valid, is useful since it performs a different function to that of the active voice, and should not be feared as much as all that!

      I ought to have known that it would have been better not to comment, but the English verb system is full of verbs helping other verbs in order to construct specific tenses and nuances of meaning, e.g. I speak, I am speaking, I was speaking, I have been speaking, I had been speaking, I would have been speaking, I should have been speaking, I could have been speaking, I ought to have been speaking, I must have been speaking, I shall have been speaking, I spoke, I have spoken, I would have spoken, I should have spoken, I could have spoken, I ought to have spoken, I must have spoken, I shall have spoken, I had spoken, I will speak, I shall speak, I will be speaking. All these verb forms are in the active mood. In these examples, as I see it, “speak” (the main verb) is getting a lot of help from other verbs, and we cannot do without any of them if we wish to express ourselves with precision.

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  16. passive voice – the subject is the doer if the actions
    active voice – the subject is the receiver of the action

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    1. Your explanation is unfortunately backward, rajehn27. Here’s the correct rule:
      Active voice–the subject does the action (John kicked the ball.)
      Passive voice–the subject receives the action (The ball was kicked by John,(

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  17. Thanks for this. I just began trying to brush up on writing skills and take it up as a hobby. So this helps me understand something I never even noticed before! How it strengthens the meaning of the sentence and helps the reader sort out important and non important almost subconsciously. Very important in the flow and art of writing.

    Thanks a mill. ❤

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    1. James, unfortunately you’ve created a comma splice in the above sentence. There should be either a period or a semicolon after “difference.”

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  22. Hello Daryl, I have had an absolute nightmare with Passive Voice. Every time I write a post, WP’s Grammar buddy pulls me up on…..”to be”…..several times and it drives me crazy because I could not figure out how else to put the sentence.

    So a BIG Thank You for this Tutorial – very well explained – and I do believe I ‘get it’ now. But…I will have to do a lot of concentrating to get the hang of Not using it and next time Grammar buddy points it out, I will change the sentence until it is happy!

    I never used to read these Tutorials because the ‘mention’ of Grammar turned me off but that’s only as I am bad at it; So you now have a new and regular reader! Plus this post is being bookmarked!

    Imogen 🙂

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  24. I’ve never wanted to take the time to read into my active and passive voices until now. I appreciate the tips. Hopefully this makes my writing better.

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  27. As a Cubs fan, I have to wonder, though, who they have annihilated? Or is it whom? Will your next post be who vs. whom???

    Great resource for writers! Always writing in the passive voice. 🙂

    – Norman | normancooper.wordpress.com

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    2. It should be WHOM, Norman. For an easy test, mentally isolate the subordinate clause and then look for the subject-verb-object pattern: who they have annihilated.
      Subject = they
      Verb= have annihilated
      Object = WHOM (They have…him, whom)

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