People like to hate on the passive voice. English teachers, writing coaches, authors–many of them echo the sentiment that writers should avoid the passive voice at all costs, instead using the active voice whenever possible. While writers should generally prioritize the active voice, because too much passive language makes writing confusing to read, saying The passive voice is always an error is a bit misleading. In fact, some writing situations prefer the passive voice instead of the active.
This article will dive into the passive voice: what it is, how it differs from the active voice, how to use it, when to use it, and when not to use it.
Passive Voice vs. Active Voice: What’s the Difference?
All verbs have an agent (the one doing the action), and most have a patient (the one receiving or getting modified by the action). In the active voice, which is the standard form of verb expression, the verb’s agent becomes the subject of the sentence, and the verb’s patient becomes the object of the sentence, as shown below:
Active voice: The verb’s agent acts as the subject.
| Subject (agent) | + verb | + object (patient) |
| My brother | hit | a homerun. |
| We all | watched | the movie in my living room. |
| Randy | is drinking | my smoothie. |
| People | don’t understand | my sense of humor. |
| My grandpa | will make us | delicious pancakes. |
| Steph Curry | has swished | five three-pointers this game. |
The passive voice, however, flips this formula so that the verb’s patient becomes the sentence’s subject, called a passive subject, and the verb’s agent becomes the sentence’s object.
Structuring a sentence like this, in the passive, requires inserting a form of “to be” (was, are, were, am, is, etc.) followed by the active verb in past-participle form (usually a verb ending with -d or -ed), so that something was done to the passive subject (or patient).
Passive voice: The verb’s patient becomes the passive subject.
| Subject (patient) | + “to be” verb & past participle | + object (agent) |
| A homerun | was hit | by my brother. |
| The movie | was watched. | |
| My smoothie | was drank | by Randy. |
| My sense of humor | is not easily understood. | |
| Delicious pancakes | will be eaten | at my grandpa’s house. |
| Five three-pointers | have been | swished during this game. |
(Reminder: In both the passive and the active forms, sentences can omit an object. For example, in the active voice I could say I sprinted, and in the passive voice I could say The sprint was completed. While both these sentences omit an object, both sentences are grammatically complete.)
When to Use the Active Voice and When to Use the Passive
General rule of thumb: Use active voice more often than passive.
For the most part, a writer’s sentences should feature the active voice more than the passive voice. To demonstrate why, consider the following sentences, displaying a passive and active version of the same scene:
Active voice: I sipped my cup of coffee.
Passive voice: My cup of coffee was sipped by me.
Compared to the active voice, the passive voice…
- sounds more awkward and unnatural.
- creates a weaker, less-direct tone.
- uses extra or unnecessary words.
- confuses who did which action, so that the reader has to use extra effort to understand the sentence’s basic idea.
- unintentionally places the focus on a verb’s object.
When to Use Passive Voice Instead of Active
By switching the sentence’s subject, the passive voice switches the sentence’s focus from the verb’s agent (the one doing the action) to its patient (the one receiving the action), and sometimes to the action itself.
Therefore, the passive voice comes in handy when you want to focus the reader’s attention on the action’s patient, or divert reader attention from the agent. The following situations invite intentional use of the passive form:
1. When the action’s agent is unknown
The passive voice comes in handy when discussing an action with an unknown agent, such as a crime, a scene stumbled upon after the event occurred, or a future action whose agent’s identity remains ambiguous.
Active voice:
An unknown suspect removed a fifty-dollar bill from my drawer last night.
Passive voice:
A fifty-dollar bill was removed from my drawer last night.
No fingerprints were left on any of the household objects.
By 4 pm, all of the contest winners will have been selected.
2. To avoid mentioning who committed the action
Sometimes, you may want to conceal the agent’s identity. Whether it’s because you don’t want to throw your friend under the bus, because the agent’s identity might distract from the sentence’s main idea, or because you’re embarrassed about what you did, the passive voice can help you explain what happened without giving away the actor’s identity.
Active voice:
My friends and I threw a party last night, and I broke some expensive items.
Passive voice:
A party was thrown last night, and expensive items were broken.
Tears were shed after we lost our baseball game.
During that argument, words were said that will not be repeated.
3. To precede the action with its response or context
When recounting some events or stories, you want to unveil the response to an occurrence in order to contextualize it. This can influence or frame your audience to adopt a point of view from which to interpret the event that follows.
Active voice:
What Randy said made me feel dismayed when I heard it.
Passive voice:
I was dismayed to hear what Randy said about me.
The team was disappointed to learn that their pitcher got traded.
The young gymnasts were delighted to find out that they had made the Olympics.
4. To keep the focus on the object or the action itself, away from the agent
In many cases, the agent’s identity is irrelevant or even distracting from the sentence’s purpose. When you want to fixate your reader’s attention on the action’s patient (recipient) or the action itself, don’t mention the agent at all–promote the patient to passive subject instead, and don’t include the agent.
Active voice:
No scientists harmed hamsters in the making of this video.
Passive voice:
No hamsters were harmed in the making of this video.
Pets are not allowed in this restaurant.
Disabled, elderly, and pregnant people are given priority on this train.
5. To lessen the intensity of something crude or harsh
The passive voice can act like euphemism, dampening the blow of a statement that might otherwise have a jarring impact. Certain situations and audiences, such as children or professional acquaintances, warrant a more subtle, indirect expression of unsettling or indecorous content.
Active voice:
Many soldiers lost their lives during World War 2.
Passive voice:
Many lives were lost during World War 2.
Blood was strewn across the bodies of zombies after the attack.
Attraction was felt when I first met your mother.
6. In some scientific contexts, to keep focus on the experiment and away from the experimenters
Scientific articles and studies often aim to remain as objective as possible, keeping focus on the relevant facts, methods, and outcomes; these texts tend to avoid the mention of scientists or people running the experiment.
Active voice:
Scientists at Purdue Laboratory pipetted bromine into the base liquid before heating.
Passive voice:
The bromine was pipetted into the base liquid before heating.
It has previously been shown that plant cells and human cells have different composition.
It was previously thought that vision occurred from rays emitted by the eyes, but this has since been disproven.
Rules for Constructing the Passive Voice
Now that you know when and how to use the passive voice to frame your reader’s attention, find below a few technical rules for forming the passive voice.
A verbal agent: when and how to include it in the passive voice
While the active voice always uses an agent (the subject), the passive voice sometimes doesn’t need an agent, as demonstrated here:
Active sentence with agent: The dog jumped over the fence.
Passive sentence with agent: The fence was jumped over by the dog.
Passive sentence without agent: The fence was jumped over.
In the passive version of this sentence, the writer should include the agent (the dog) because the agent plays a critical role in the sentence: The fence was jumped over seems eventless and pointless without the dog.
When writing in the passive voice, include the agent if its identity is critical to understanding the sentence–for example, when explaining that a book was written by an author, that a quotation was said by someone, or that a gift was given by someone. Include the agent by inserting the word by after the past participle, then listing the agent.
Situations in the passive voice that typically include an action’s agent:
Mentioning who created a product: book, article, piece of art, toy, house, etc.
- To Kill a Mockingbird was written in 1960 by Harper Lee.
- The poem “This is Just to Say” was written by William Carlos Williams.
- This toy was made by Mattel Inc. in 1992.
Mentioning who gave an item, gift, or offering
- These earrings were given to me by my mother.
- The reward for tracking the criminal was posted by the police department.
- That email was sent by my boss.
Situations in the passive voice that don’t require an agent:
Whenever the action’s doer is irrelevant, distracting, nonexistent, or unknown
- The museum’s artifacts were stolen.
- The cupcakes were covered with pink frosting.
- Sergeant Jenkins was left forsaken on the battlefield.
(Reminder: An agent can act as the sentence’s object, subject, and in some cases [mentioned above] can be left out entirely. Where you place the agent will determine if the sentence is active or passive.)
Only transitive verbs–not intransitive verbs–can transform into passive voice.
While every verb must have an agent, transitive verbs require a patient or object–something to be acted upon.
Transitive verbs (take a direct object or patient):
- My family bought a car.
- The construction company built a house.
- Her baby drank its milk bottle.
- The Cowboys beat the 49ers.
- A mime mimics people in the park.
Intransitive verbs, on the other hand, do not take an object or patient in their active form.
Intransitive verbs in the active form (do not take a direct object or patient):
- This morning, I ran.
- She’s in the other room, reading.
- Mother is always listening.
- I agree.
- The buzzer-beating shot counted.
Since the passive voice switches the verb’s object or patient into a passive subject, only transitive verbs can transform into the passive voice because intransitive verbs have no object or patient–therefore, the passive form of an intransitive verb has no subject, which is grammatically incorrect.
Transitive verbs in active and passive forms:
Active: My family bought a car.
Passive: A car was bought by my family.
Active: The construction company built a house.
Passive: A house was built by the construction company.
Active: The Cowboys beat the 49ers.
Passive: The 49ers were beaten by the Cowboys.
Key points about passive verbs from this article:
- Active language should take general priority over passive language.
- Passive language switches the regular sentence structure, making the verb’s patient into the sentence’s subject.
- Use passive language when you don’t know the verb’s agent, or when you want to take reader attention away from the verb’s agent toward the verb’s patient.
- While every active-voice verb has an agent, only some passive-voice verbs do.
- Only transitive verbs can take the passive form.
Wrapping up
Whew! It sure takes a lot of active reading to learn about the passive voice, doesn’t it? It might seem at first like all these rules and conditions make it nearly impossible to learn how to write in the passive voice, but like most aspects of language and grammar, the peripheral rules come mostly through muscle memory gained from experience–that is, time spent reading and writing. The more you read, and the more you write, the more you will begin to pick up on all the rules contained in this guide, as well as Bartleby’s other grammar guides. So remember, always stay active about practicing reading and writing, and your grammar skills will go far.
